IN AN effort to help deal with the increasing challenges sheep farmers face on climate change and increasing consumer demands, the State government and the Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) Donor Company will invest $4 million into research and development to help support the industry.
The SheepLinks program will receive $2m from the government over the next four years, which has been matched by the MLA Donor Company.
Designed to lift the productivity of WA sheep enterprises, develop business resilience to market and climate variability, optimise the value and volume of production and cultivate new market opportunities, the initiative will include a series of research projects, with the first two called FEED 365 and NEXUS.
The FEED 365 program is focussed on developing year-round pastures and forage grazing systems and filling the summer-autumn feed gap.
The project will be based at the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) Katanning Research Facility and will also examine the possibility of alley-farming pastures and trees as a business model.
The second project, called Future Sheep and part of the MLA's NEXUS program, is focussed on helping sheep farmers reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and understand the various opportunities within the meat and wool markets.
WA Agriculture and Food Minister Alannah MacTiernan said the State's export markets were increasingly looking at the whole sustainability story around their food and fibre, so the investment aimed to equip farmers with the ability to meet the challenges of a changing climate as well as changing markets.
"We know the whole South West land division is going to become hotter and drier and that is going to make farming a greater challenge, so we want to try to turn some of that around by the development of soil carbon and landscape changes," Ms MacTiernan said.
"In terms of our wool, it is fundamentally an export industry so we have to understand what the international markets are demanding and of course even our own local consumers."
As part of the NEXUS project, DPIRD will develop case studies with the Grower Group Alliance to compare a mix of sheep and cropping enterprise scenarios to understand the impact of climate change scenarios to 2030 and 2050.
"The sheep industry has seen many highs and lows in the past 20 years and while there has been great demand for sheep in recent times, this has come at a cost as the size of the State's flock has significantly reduced," Ms MacTiernan said.
"These SheepLinks projects and those to follow will help reposition the WA sheep industry on a sound footing for the future, backed by scientific evidence, aided with tools and strategies to improve whole farm productivity, weather climate variability and capture carbon opportunities."
Speaking at the Dowerin GWN7 Machinery Field Days on August 25,, MLA group manager productivity and animal wellbeing David Beatty said the research and development projects would include learnings from WA's already resilient farming systems.
"Where the interests of the industry are aligned with the interests of the government - it's a great opportunity to partner on these types of missions," Mr Beatty said.
