Manager of Pooginook Poll and Merino Stud, John Sutherland (left, with microphone), addresses the Your Future in Merinos event.

From the significant opportunities Merino sheep provide for growers across Australia, to the impact a lack of shearers is having, and how non-mulesed wool is performing in global markets, the Your Future in Merinos event at Pooginook Merino and Poll Stud covered plenty of ground.

The hybrid online and in-person event, hosted at Pooginook in the NSW Riverina, gathered a range of experts to discuss the value Merino enterprises can deliver. The idea was to raise awareness of current challenges and show roadmap options that lead to a sustainable sheep industry, with world class animal welfare, shearer availablity and optimal economics of the Merino enterprise.

The panellists came from a broad cross section of industry, including wool exporters and brokers, Australian Wool Innovation representatives, a veterinarian and growers, including event host and manager of Pooginook, John Sutherland.

The first session, themed The Journey to Mules Free, highlighted success stories and explored how non-mulesed sheep is a viable option for growers. President of the Australian Council of Wool Exporters and Processors Josh Lamb started by outlining how consumers view mulesed versus non-mulesed wool.

“The focus has been on non-mulesed for probably 15 years. The issue for Australia is, we’ve been well behind the eight ball all along in that conversation,” Josh told the attendees.

“What consumers want first of all is good practise, in their minds, for animal welfare, and if they think that’s non-mulesed sheep, then that’s what we have to deliver.

“The education around why we mules or we don’t mules is important, but at the end of the day, if the consumer is asking for a certain product, it’s our job to deliver that.”

The flow-on effects from this consumer behaviour, Josh believes, is clear to see with how downstream processors and retailers view Australian wool.

“What we’re seeing over the last three to four years is more talk coming from overseas that if they can’t get what they want in Australia, they’re having to go to another overseas market,” he says.

Traceability is strongly driven by consumers, but there’s an element which is driven by downstream processors, or retailers, a topic the panellists spent some time discussing.

“It all comes back to traceability - these businesses want to be able to protect themselves, they want to be able to tell the consumer that they are sourcing their raw material in an ethical and sustainable way, and these animal welfare and traceability issues are becoming traffic lights for consumers, to the point where if it’s not ticking the boxes for them, that’s a red light, they’re not going to buy that product,” Josh explains.

“There is a market for mulesed wool and maybe there always will be, but that emphasis on the sustainability and traceability side of it is getting louder and louder, and it’s not going away, so while end users are trying to protect their own businesses, this is what the consumer is asking for, and we really need to listen harder.”

The second session delved into All Things Shearing, which was a unique opportunity for growers, shearing contractors and representative organisations to come together for the mutual benefit of the industry.

The session had a particular focus on labour issues in the industry, an underlying problem which COVID exposed when New Zealand workers couldn’t travel to Australia. Additionally, the shearing industry has lost workers to more desirable job opportunities as facilities and working conditions have not been sufficiently upgraded and modernised to keep pace with other sectors.

As Jason Letchford, CEO of Shearing Contractors Association of Australia, explained to the event, the skilled labour shortage is serious.

He says with ABS census data indicating Australia lost 32% of the shearing workforce between 2006 and 2016, a predicted increase in the national flock means more labour is needed.

“MLA’s saying we’re going to hit about 74.4 million sheep in 2022, and we need about 40 shearers per million sheep, working on the average shearer shearing 24-thousand to 25-thousand sheep a year, Jason told the event.

“So, we need more shearers, and farmers are seeing the end result of that, paying at least 20 per cent more to get shearers.”

He believes the issue needs to be tackled on many fronts, highlighting the important work AWI is doing around muscle fatigue and injury management, particularly during the catch and drag process, a situation which has been exacerbated as average sheep size has increased over the years.

Jason also points out that many growers are only doing the bare minimum in terms of shearing facilities, which needs to be addressed to make the industry more attractive.

“There’s lots of things that we’re doing in this industry that are really only just coming up to scratch, like flushing toilets, air conditioning, really basic stuff,” he says.

“If you’re still thinking in the mode of what’s the bare minimum that I need to have in place, you’re actually losing the game, you’re just playing catch-up.”

The final session, Unpacking the Economics of Merinos saw AgriPath founder Simon Fritsch explain how the performance of various sheep enterprises compare, to help growers make the best choices to drive the profitability of their businesses.
“When you’re looking at the top performing farms in terms of where their returns have come from, it’s no surprise that in those top 20 per cent, there’s always some wool producers, but there’s also cattle producers and there’s also composite producers,” Simon says.

“The top end of the industry is very good at what they do and the enterprise competes for itself in terms of getting all those little things right. So, the merino sits very well in that package, in terms of being able to provide competitive returns”.
Simon explained the best way for managers to inform the many complex decisions they make is to measure performance, and use it to help drive decision making for better business improvement going forward.

The diversity of the merino, with five potential income streams, was highlighted; wool, lamb, restockers, mutton and skin value. Not only can all five streams be highly profitable, but importantly, are also very measureable, which is an important factor in productive operations, according to Simon Fritsch.

“When you look at farm performance, and what is it that these types of performers are doing, generally it comes down to the fact they just produce more income than their peers,” he says.

“The drivers of income are obviously what growers produce - kilos of meat per hectare, or kilos of wool per hectare, and the other key driver of income is stocking rate, and again that comes down to how well growers manage their environment.

“The final factor, which we ignore the most probably, is the enterprise choice. It’s about trying to understand your country and how you best match those enterprises, and we need to be continually checking they are the right choices for our assets.”

To view the recordings of the Your Future in Merinos event, head to pooginook.com.au/blog. 

The Merino industry came together both live at Pooginook and online across Australia to discuss opportunities and challenges facing the sector.