Sheep supply is one of the key issues facing Australia’s sheep industry today, and with Australia unable to meet the current strong demand for live sheep from our Middle Eastern consumers it is a particularly important issue for the live sheep industry.

It is therefore vital to the future of the live sheep industry that producers have the confidence to remain and reinvest in sheep production to be able to supply much needed fresh meat to millions of people in the Middle East now and into the future.

In an effort to provide producers, state and federal governments and other industry stakeholders with this confidence, LiveCorp sponsored the recent LambEx Conference in Perth. The national conference brought the whole of the sheep meat industry together to address the rapid decline of the national flock, and the impact this is having on our domestic and global consumers.

LiveCorp CEO Cameron Hall presented a paper (click here) on the current status of Australia’s live sheep industry, as well as its future prospects and the major challenge the industry faces in having enough supply to meet current and increasing demand for live sheep.

LiveCorp also sponsored Naveed Ahmed, of Muscat Livestock Co., to present on the opportunities and risks for Australian sheep producers in the Gulf for both live sheep and boxed sheep meat. Mr Ahmed’s paper can be found here . His key messages for Australian sheep producers were that Australia enjoys a unique reputation for consistently supplying high quality, healthy livestock to the Gulf, and that the outlook for Australian meat and livestock in the region will be very bright if Australia is able to produce the sheep the region requires.

In an effort to better understand the issue of sheep supply, LiveCorp also recently contributed to a survey of sheep producers from key producing areas in Western Australia and Victoria to their attitudes to sheep production and live export. A summary of the findings of the research undertaken by Meat & Livestock Australia and the Department of Agriculture and Food Western Australia can be found here . A clear finding of the survey is that the livestock export trade is considered a valuable market for Western Australian sheep producers, with better sale price returns, greater flexibility of delivery and flock management the main drivers for this response.

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