SHARPENING the sheep business was the focus of Tuesday's leading sheep event, the Agribusiness Sheep Updates, delivered by the Department of Agriculture and Food (DAFWA).
Keynote speaker, Australian Farm Institute executive director Mick Keogh, said there were emerging trends and developments, on-farm and beyond the farm gate tht would guide the future development of the industry.
Mr Keogh said consumer wants and needs for wool and meat, the global economy and digital technologies would all play a part in shaping the sheep industry. Productivity gains would also be crucial.
"The sheep industry and particularly the wool industry has been a sector that has exhibited some of the lowest levels of productivity growth over the past two decades, reducing its competitiveness," Mr Keogh said.
"Significant re-investment will depend to some degree on the availability of new technologies that enable productivity growth through the reduction of labour requirements in particular."
Robotics and automation are expected to play an increasing role, he said.
"There are already several lamb processors in Australia that have implemented fully automated robotic carcase processing," Mr Keogh said.
"These have the potential of significant cost reduction for processors, but also generate an enormous amount of objective carcase data.
"This is likely over the next 10 years to enable those processors to develop very detailed profiles of the performance of different farms, lamb genetics and farm management systems."
DAFWA sheep industry leader Bruce Mullan said research commissioned by the department had taken a hard look at the economics of sheep versus cropping, and the costs of out-of-season production.
The findings were detailed by consultants Ashley Herbert and John Young.
"This will provide valuable data which consultants, producers and bankers can use to help make better decisions," Dr Mullan said.
Sheep Updates was delivered by the department's Sheep Industry Business Innovation project, funded by the Royalties for Regions program.