WA sheep producers are disappointed a survey conducted by Australian Wool Innovation (AWI) did not delve further into on-farm mulesing practices.
The survey, part of AWI's annual three-year stakeholder survey, was an online and phone survey which asked a number of questions, the last of which asked farmers whether they were still mulesing.
But Narembeen farmer Harry Thorn, like a number of producers in WA, is using pain relief when mulesing and when he responded to the survey to say that he was told it wasn't an option on the survey.
"Most of the questions seemed to be orientated towards how you felt about AWI and what it was doing and whether you were going to vote to give them more money or less money," Mr Thorn said.
"The thing that concerned me most was the last question about mulesing, I felt they could have elaborated a bit and asked me more about mulesing like if I am using pain relief or clips.
"I was just unsure as to whether AWI was running an agenda and not asking about pain relief because it didn't invent it, so it wasn't supporting it."
But a spokesperson for AWI said that as the research, development and marketing company for the Australian wool industry, AWI worked in partnership with a wide range of stakeholders along the supply chain.
"These stakeholders include woolgrowers and Federal Government, as they are also shareholders in AWI," the spokesperson said.
"Like most other research and development corporations, AWI has historically commissioned biennial independent research of woolgrower views and awareness of AWI and its activities.
"The aim of this is to assist AWI to further strengthen its communications and inform investments and strategies across the business.
"What this does is ensure AWI's activities are directly driven by industry.
"The last time research like this was done was in 2008 and at the time AWI thought it useful to include detailed questions on mulesing practices.
"Mulesing is not central to the communications scope of the 2011 survey, but it was included to help create a benchmark of results over time, so the two broad questions regarding mulesing were kept.
"The new 2011 survey's main focus and intent was to improve the company's communication with woolgrowers.
"To achieve this and keep the survey at an appropriate length and so we didn't impose on woolgrowers' time, the questions regarding mulesing were limited."
However Mr Thorn said if AWI was spending the money on the survey it may as well get something useful from it.
"I was just annoyed with it and the way it was approached," he said.
"It would be more useful if they're going to spend the money that they may as well find out who is or isn't using pain relief."
AWI said the 2011 research project includes qualitative and quantitative analysis of randomly-selected shareholders' views, with the sample size statistically significant and large enough to cover all geographic areas to ensure a valid representation of AWI shareholder views.
The first phase of the project involved focus groups, conducted in five woolgrowing regions throughout Australia.
The second phase involved a survey of shareholders awareness regarding AWI's operating environment activities and communication and includes online and telephone surveys.
"The survey was just an internal survey, if woolgrowers are worried about it they shouldn't be, it's not like were going to turn around and publish all the information and put it back in the growers," the spokesperson said.
