Best Wool Best Lamb chair Jason Trompf urged producers to not rest on their laurels as prices for wool and sheepmeat have been at heightened levels in recent months.

“We have seen the dairy industry make significant productivity gains while milk prices have been historically low, so let’s not be lethargic,” Trompf stressed at the beginning of the BWBL event where about 400 people were in attendance.

Other speakers on the BWBL program this morning included economist Chris Wilcox, Poimena Analyis, Mark Inglis, JBS Australia and Mark Wootton from Jigsaw Farms in south-western Victoria.

Inglis also challenged sheep and lamb producers to embrace abattoir feedback with new objective measurement technologies now being much more readily available.

“Abattoirs and the processing industry have been working very hard to improve the quality of carcass feedback they can provide to producers and as producers, you need to make sure you are ready for the next step in the big data age,” Inglis said.

The BWBL conference also includes several practical demonstrations and presentations including sheep electronic identification systems, handling techniques and news on some of the latest industry developments.