Lorrae Moon has an unusual passion. She geeks out over sheep.
鈥淚 love them so much,鈥� she said. 鈥淏oy, when I start handling the wool, I just am like, oh my God, this is so beautiful. And I just I kept buying sheep.鈥�
Farming sheep and producing premium yarn and wool products became her productive outlets for that passion. Every time she encountered an intriguing new breed, she had to have it. After working six days a week in the wool mill, she鈥檇 plan her days off around acquiring the latest animal.
鈥淏ut I was getting our numbers quite large,鈥� she admitted.
Her husband, Lewis, finally put his foot down before they got overrun.
鈥淪o, I鈥檓 in a sheep buyers鈥� anonymous program,鈥� Moon joked. 鈥淚 have a chip for 365 days.鈥�
These days, she keeps the herd to a modest 80 head, spread across the family ranch on the outskirts of Craig, in the Northwest part of the state.
Also on site: a full-service wool mill packed with carders and spinners 鈥� machinery that progressively combs raw fleece shorn right off her sheep into clean, organized bundles, then twists it into soft, luxurious yarn.
That yarn is her signature product. It鈥檚 entirely produced - from the birth of the lamb to the expensive price tag on the finished skein - on site at the ranch, and she sells it out of a cozy store in front of the mill.
You could say another obsession is with keeping it all local.
鈥淲e kind of base this whole company on doing what we could do right here, close,鈥� she said.
Moon doesn't engage with international commerce. Nearly all the inputs she uses are produced stateside and she鈥檚 never shipped overseas.
Even so, when President Trump unveiled his 10% tariffs on foreign trade earlier this month, she perked up: more expensive imported wool seemed like good news for her domestic artisan yarn business. She was gratified by the tariffs.
鈥淚 feel like it's an upswing for us,鈥� Moon said.
It鈥檚 a sentiment she shares with many others in her industry.
鈥淪heep producers are pretty excited about the tariffs,鈥� said Ashley House,鈥妚ice president of strategy and advocacy with the Colorado Farm Bureau.
That鈥檚 because the American sheep industry has been in decline for decades, overwhelmed by cheaper imports from Australia and New Zealand - where sheep outnumber people - which cost less because of the relatively strong American dollar. Today, only about one quarter of the lamb meat consumed in the US is produced domestically.
But in the context of American production, Colorado is a powerhouse, ranking among the top three sheep states. Tariffs on all that imported lamb meat, wool and yarn can make high priced local products more enticing.
鈥�(Sheep producers) feel fulfilled by the Trump administration's campaign promises to bring domestic production to the forefront of the industry, and to make our Colorado grown products more competitive globally,鈥� House said.
The American Sheep Industry Association has the tariffs on Australia and New Zealand, calling the 10% tax a 鈥済ood first step鈥� towards leveling the playing field for American producers.
Agriculture and tariffs
Sheep producers鈥� full-throated embrace of the tariffs is hardly a common theme in other parts of the agriculture industry, which have much more contact with international trade.
At the state level, Colorado is a in global markets, and our healthy agricultural export market is a big part of that success. The state鈥檚 farmers and ranchers export upwards of $2 billion in beef products, dairy, wheat, potatoes, animal feed and other agricultural products each year. Many of those same row crop farmers rely on imported inputs like and for farming equipment, leaving them more exposed than the sheep industry to tariff-induced pain.
It's still the early days for the new tariff regime, but farmers and ranchers whose business touches international markets have been on edge, anticipating fallout as the harvest season nears.
Colorado State University agriculture and resource economist Dawn Thilmany said that in Colorado, agriculture producers are most exposed to trade with Canada and Mexico.
鈥淲e have fully integrated supply chains in some products across those borders on both the north and south,鈥� Thilmany said. 鈥淲e get most of our fertilizer from Canada. 鈥奧e'll literally send some stuff across the border and then bring it back because there was just no implication of that, except for some travel time and costs.鈥�
鈥淧robably the biggest way they're feeling the tariffs right now is in the uncertainty,鈥� said Rocky Mountain Farmers Union President Chad Franke, referring to the of tariffs that have been introduced, then partially rolled back, then adjusted multiple times.
鈥淛ust not knowing is really hard when you've got to plan so far out,鈥� he said. 鈥淭he wheat harvest in eastern Colorado 鈥� In September, when it was planted, we couldn't have guessed that there'd be as much chaos as there is right now, and we don't know what's gonna be happening by July when they harvest it.鈥�
Even with their livelihood at stake, support for the Trump administration鈥檚 tariffs remains relatively strong among the state鈥檚 farmers and ranchers, according to the Colorado Farm Bureau.
鈥淐onceptually, people are pretty supportive of the administration,鈥� House said, describing the tariffs as an expression of cultural or moral values as much as an economic policy. 鈥淔or our members, they feel vindicated in a certain sense. They're getting recognition for the hard work they've put in, in terms of quality of products.鈥�
鈥淏ut I think that when they're actually putting pencil to paper and trying to acquire financing or trying to make projections for their banker, they're seeing a little bit different picture,鈥� House added.
Nuance in the sheep industry
Even among sheep producers, who generally stand to benefit from higher tariffs on imported lamb and wool products, there鈥檚 some hesitation about the administration鈥檚 policies.
Mike Harper owns a major sheep feedlot in Weld County and said he's all for tariffs on those imports from Australia and New Zealand.
鈥淲e've felt like there's been an incredible imbalance,鈥� he said. "They're undercutting us pretty substantially in pricing, the imports are.鈥�
But the current 10% tariffs are not the ones he was hoping for.
鈥淎 10% tariff - you know, it鈥檚 a decent number. But it鈥檚 probably not enough to make us competitive,鈥� Harper said. 鈥淚f they鈥檇 have come out at 25 or 30%, I think that would鈥檝e been impactful.鈥�
Harper鈥檚 wife, MaryAnn, who also owns the feedlot, said the most useful tariffs would be smarter, more targeted and seasonally adjusted to keep up with the natural cycles of animal husbandry, in which lambs are born in the spring and need time to grow before they鈥檙e ready for slaughter.
鈥淚n the summer, there would be less tariffs, to allow them in the months that we struggle here domestically,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hen you would put a higher tariff on that meat coming in when we need the market to benefit us. It really could be a win-win situation if it was looked at in that regard, instead of just a blanket tariff 鈥榳e're just going to shut it all down.鈥欌��
The Harpers said they would also take a hit on the export market. They ship all their sheepskins to China for processing. But with retaliatory tariffs, that鈥檚 no longer an economically viable option. With nowhere to clean and tan the skins stateside, Harper said he鈥檇 have to pay to dump and landfill the pelts, turning a sheep industry commodity into an economic liability.
鈥�(The tariffs have) just stopped movement into China,鈥� Mike Harper said. 鈥淎nd the infrastructure is not here to manage. I mean, we can't just flip the switch and start doing it all here domestically. We're not set up for it.鈥�
The most local producers
Some domestic markets are set up for this tariff-heavy moment, according to Thilmany. Producers that buy and sell locally are well positioned to take advantage of the new trade reality.
鈥淭he one bright spot is for people who already had decided they were going to have local and regional orientation with their marketing strategies,鈥� Thilmany said. 鈥淭hey actually might fully be winners, because they were never looking to sell to export markets, and they鈥檝e always looked relatively expensive.鈥�
With the new tariffs on foreign rivals, those higher priced domestic goods look a lot more competitive.
鈥淣ow, all of a sudden, they have customers who are pretty happy with their price points,鈥� Thilmany said.
Sheepskin exports aside, the US sheep industry largely fits that bill.
鈥淭here is an opportunity to reestablish a sector that quite honestly almost died out,鈥� Thilmany said.
But the sheep industry is small 鈥� just of the size of the larger agricultural sectors that are more exposed to tariff fallout.
鈥淪heep will see a relatively better day,鈥� Thilmany said. 鈥淚t's just not going to be nearly enough to offset the shocks to all the other parts of the ag sector.鈥�
Still, sheep farmer and wool miller Lorrae Moon has good reason to believe the tariffs will be an overall win for her artisan yarn business. The higher cost of imported wool will make her products more appealing to customers.
鈥淚t is a little more of a dollar that you spend when you come here,鈥� Moon said. But with the tariffs, 鈥減eople are saying, 鈥榳ell I, I might buy less yarn but I'm gonna buy a really good one, and I'm gonna know the farmer and I'm gonna know its story.鈥欌��
Which means her enduring sheep obsession could finally pay off in the marketplace.
