R-Calf United stock Growers of America is pointing to the domestic sheep industry as a warning to what can happen to the cattle industry. R-CALF CEO Bill Bullard.

And we’ve been looking at this for a decade and have been warning the cattle industry that the sheep industry is in fact, the canary in the coal mine that we’ve showed how US production of lamb and mutton has been on a long-term decline. And at the same time, we’ve seen an absolute explosion of imported product coming in from foreign countries.

As a result, R-CALF has filed a petition for action with the US Trade Ambassador.

It’s called a global safeguard investigation. And in that investigation, what’s necessary to be proved is that the imports were a substantial cause of serious injury to a US industry. And we believe that the sheep industry is just an absolute perfect example of why that Act was passed. And that’s because we’ve seen our sheep industry just decimated we’ve seen the 52% decline in the number of sheep in our inventory. We have the smallest inventories in history right now in the United States.

In the least, Bullard says they’re seeking import restrictions such as tariffs, tariff rate quotas or quantity related limitations.