AWI said many Merino sheep producers using terminal sires to chase high meat prices would be better off making low cost, low risk changes to improve the productivity of their self-replacing Merino business, farm business consultant David Sackett.
Speaking to about 200 producers at an Australian Wool Innovation (AWI) forum in Goulburn, Mr Sackett warned that the breeding strategies taken by many producers were not delivering the sought after returns.
This had particularly been the case in the past eighteen months when returns for dual purpose enterprises had declined, he said.
"A lot of people are trying to do something that their farm and pastures can't support. If you are producing lambs you need to achieve weight gain. If you don't have the feed base for this then is it not going to work for you," he said.
"And some producers are now facing higher mortality rates in their ewes because they have been hanging onto them longer. It is about balance – you can really only join up to 40 per cent of ewes to terminal sires and be sustainable. In many flocks it is less than that."
Mr Sackett said the recent Sheep CRC benchmarking study and AWI's yet-to-be-released profitability analysis showed that there were producers achieving productivity increases of 3-5 per cent a year – well above the average 0.8 per cent across all sheep enterprises over the past decade.
"The sheep industry has been considered a basket case in terms of productivity – but there are producers getting that 5 per cent annual productivity increase and they are doing it using quite low cost, low risk strategies," he said.
Simple strategies such as better selection of genetics, improving labour efficiency and better matching stocking rate to feed supply, can deliver significant productivity increases.
"Many sheep producers seem to have given up on wool but in most Merino flocks it still generates the majority of the income. The message is pretty clear – don't take your eye off the ball. Focus on what you do and do it well."
Australian Wool Innovation Limited
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