ALTHOUGH sheep prices are recovering after foot-and-mouth they are still only the same as they were ten years ago.

Maurice Jones of Signet told a seminar: "It is the one thing that really winds me up. We have had quite a good year and the price is quite tidy but ten years ago the price was exactly the same as today.

Not many businesses in this country can be working with the same price as ten years ago; a car company would be out of business straight away."

But he urged producers to talk the industry up - not down.

Agriculture was beginning to recover from foot-and-mouth.

At the end of the crisis, 762,000 cattle, 5.5m sheep and 429,000 pigs had been lost, but the UK breeding flock in December totalled 16.5-17m ewes and the forecast was that it would remain at about that level.

It meant less product on the market and fewer ewes to tup, particularly in lowland areas.

Mr Jones believed, however, that there could be a positive market because lamb numbers were 18pc down and skin prices had risen from only £2-£3 to £5-£6. There was also a reasonable demand for lamb at home and abroad.

Carl Stephenson, chairman of the Northern Uplands Sheep Strategy, spoke of the benefits of joining the organisation, which helps farmers identify good individual animals.

He gave examples of results on his own farm where high-muscle tups had resulted in lambs with extra meat which meant an extra £3.60 per Leicester lamb and £2.60 per Swaledale lamb.

He stressed that the extra income did not involve any extra work.