THE sheep industry has made significant progress when it comes to animal welfare and environment, a new report has found, but labour continues to be a challenge for many producers.
Now in its fourth year, the 2024 Sheep Sustainability Framework (SSF) Annual Report, which was established by Sheep Producers Australia and WoolProducers Australia with support from Australian Wool Innovation (AWI) and Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA), was released this week.
The report emphasised key improvements and challenges within the sector, with an increase in the uptake in carbon accounting among the highlights. The report shows the number of sheep producers using carbon accounting or another process to measure their enterprise's Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions has tripled in the last two years, up from three percent in 2022 to 9.9 per cent this year.
When it comes to environment, another highlight of the 2024 report was the baseline data showing 72.6 per cent of sheep producers are undertaking deliberate activities to measure, maintain or enhance biodiversity.
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The SSF report also reveals significant improvements in sheep welfare, with MLA pointing out the use of pain management has increased year-on-year. Additionally, the report reveals 18.6 per cent of Merino and 47.1 per cent of non-Merino wool now comes from unmulesed sheep, or from properties that have ceased the practice altogether, compared to 15.8 per cent and 40.1 per cent respectively in 2023.
MLA said for the first time this year, sheep producers were asked to rate their satisfaction with their "life as a whole" as part of the Global Life Satisfaction. Notably the score, which encapsulates standard of living, health, life accomplishments, personal relationships, safety, feeling part of a community and future security, was higher among sheep producers, at 76.1 per cent, than the overall Australian rating of 69.4 per cent.
In addition to positive progress, the report covered challenges sheep producers are facing.
MLA said access to labour remains an issue for the industry, with 42 per cent of growers who participated in the 2024 National Sheep Survey reporting they have major issues with finding general labour, up seven per cent from 2022. Data in the SSF report shows 40 per cent of the 45,500 people employed in the sheep production and shearing sector are aged between 55 and 74 years, with male workers making up for 72 per cent of workers. Worryingly, the data also indicates adoption of basic Workplace Healthy and Safety (WHS) practices, such as risk assessments and worker inductions, is relatively low at 54.6 per cent.
SSF steering group chair, Dr Scott Williams, said a significant amount of work has been done this year to fill in data gaps with new metrics and better align metrics between the SSF and Australian Beef Sustainability Framework.
"The SSF is constantly evolving, seeking to move with the science and meet the increasing demand from consumers and industry stakeholders for transparency and performance when it comes to sustainable production of sheepmeat and wool," Dr Williams said.
"The latest report shows that progress in critical areas for our industry also allows us to shine a spotlight on the challenges we need to tackle head on."
MORE INFORMATION
Read the full report here
