Trans Humans and the Trade of Sheep

3min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

A lot of the really big farms will only produce commercial sheep. They're producing breeding sheep for other farms. A mountain farm typically breeds young females to sell to lowland farms. And so yeah, we have these sort of ancient trading relationships. Some are taking the sheep in the same place that we used to take them with trans humans walking them in the winter. Amazing. It's basically trans humans with a couple of economic exchanges in the middle.

James Rebanks's family has raised sheep in the same small English village for at least four centuries. There are records of people with his same last name going back a few hundred more. Even his sheep are rooted in place: their DNA is from Viking times. It's enough to make anyone feel insignificant--and according to Rebanks, that's a wonderful thing. Listen as the author of The Shepherd's Life speaks with EconTalk's Russ Roberts about the deep pleasures and humbling privilege of being a sheep farmer.