New Zealand, a country which is known for its lush green forests and wildlife, continues to be home to more sheep than people. The report by news agency AFP, citing official figures released on Monday (May 22), said sheep outnumber people by fewer than five to one, which is the lowest level in nearly two centuries.
According to the recently released five-yearly census of agricultural production in New Zealand, the national flock fell by two per cent, which amounts to 400,000 sheep to 25.3 million people, as of June last year. This decline in national sheep figures has been attributed to the rise in farming costs and falling wool prices.
“The ratio of sheep to people dropped below five to one in 2022, for the first time since the 1850s, when national sheep numbers were first recorded,” said Stats NZ, a government body, analyst Jason Attewell, as quoted by AFP.
It is worth noting that this isn’t the worst ratio in the country when it comes to the number of sheep to people, as there was a time in New Zealand when the number of sheep famously sat at 22 per person back in 1982 and around that time, the sheep figures stood at 72 million.
Attewell also noted that there has been a recent decline in the population of sheep in the country when compared to Australia which currently has three times as many sheep as New Zealand. However, the ratio in Canberra is only around three sheep to every Aussie, said the Stats NZ analyst.
In 2019, China topped the list with the most sheep in the world. But given their human-to-sheep population ratio, it does not raise many eyebrows. However, New Zealand is home to only 5.2 million people when compared to China’s 1.4 billion people, so the difference is much more prominent.
According to reports, back in the 1850s, sheep was starting to become a primary component of New Zealand’s economy and soon after wool became one of the country’s most important exports. This continues even today, as Wellington is one of the world’s main wool exporters. In 2022, it exported $284 million worth of wool overseas. (The Quint)
