I dunno about NZ and the UK, but from what I've seen of farms in Australia and Sweden, I can believe it. In Australia, I see cattle in absolutely massive fields where they eat whatever is growing there. In Sweden, I see small fields that can't sustain the livestock (especially not in winter) and they need to feed them farmed food, which takes a lot of energy to grow, store and harvest.

Producing lamb in NZ is a veryow intensity operation. Usually lambs are just out on a hill and left there for a few months before slaughter. There's also drenching and other stuff, but the actual land they're in isn't irrigated or worked at all.

Not so much these days, but it used to be fairly common to just run sheep up a mountain valley and then twice a year muster them down the valley (often with only horses and dogs) for shearing and slaughter. Any sheep that fall ill would either recover or die.

That's still the case usually, a lamb is worth a lot less than the vet costs.

why wouldn't it be?

raising sheep requires land, remember? it's livestock, grass/feed, water, veterinarians, medication, sheepdogs, abattoir, compliance, inspection, processing, packing, refrigeration, shipping.

if you're producing wool, let's substitute/add shearing, washing, drying, processing, packing, etc.

not to mention sales, marketing, client relations, accounting, human resources, payroll taxes, corporate taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, value added taxes, etc. because a ranch is a business that turns over probably millions a year.

how much does all that cost in the UK? how much does it cost in NZ? find the difference, and compared to the shipping costs, which are trivial, probably a couple of thousand dollars to get a refrigerated 30 foot container from Auckland to Amsterdam, then another few hundred pounds to get it across the channel and into a distribution center in the south of england.

i don't know a damn thing about farming or logistics, but all it takes is about 2 minutes of thought to see how the economics would work.