Staff shortages for WA meat processors.

And with the spring flush just around the corner, abattoirs are working around the clock to process a large number of old season lambs.

To address the serious backlog, the WA Meat Market Co-operative (WAMMCO) reduced its annual Katanning plant shutdown to one week at the beginning of August.

In a statement WAMMCO general manager Coll MacRury said servicing key offshore markets with a depleted labour shortage posed a major problem.

He predicted labour shortages would continue to be the major challenge heading into the new season with difficulty finding suitable offshore workers.

But it's not just WAMMCO which is feeling the pinch, it is the entire industry.

Beaufort River Meats (BRM) is running at 70 per cent workforce and is on a limited kill of 1250 head per day, down 600 on the usual 1800-head processed.

This has been ongoing since the end of last season, and BRM general manager Kel Whitehouse predicted it could continue on for another 12-24 months.

Mr Whitehouse said the plant was currently working through a four-week log jam.

He said labour shortages and storage issues had the biggest impact in regards to throughput, creating a bottleneck for most processing plants.

"Labour shortages are impacting the agricultural industry as a whole - not just the meat sector," Mr Whitehouse said.

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"We have had some workers - for example Pacific Islanders - who have had to return home and replacing those people has been difficult.

"We are labour intensive, that's the brutal fact of it to be honest.

"It is frustrating for us, don't get me wrong."

So what impact does the situation have on meat processors in particular?

Mr Whitehouse said BRM was forced to dump particular cuts - or by-products - they would normally save.

This has resulted in a loss of revenue and is why there are restrictions on what they can pay for livestock.

"We can't pay high procurement prices if we are dumping most of our by-products, which sometimes actually pushes us into the black, rather than into the red," he said.

"There's no technical term to it, it is just simply we don't have enough people to process the numbers that we are capable of.

"Therefore restricted kills have to come into place and it means farmers have to wait before getting their stock in."

With a good lambing season forecast this year - off the back of favourable weather conditions - there is some uncertainty as to what is ahead.

A good lambing means extra numbers to be processed and a potential bottleneck come November.

Mr Whitehouse said as a result, sheep producers may have no choice other than to carry lambs on through, which obviously comes at a cost.

He said abattoirs could only process what they could when space was created.

"Everybody would like to be able to lift their kills back up to their full potential, but unfortunately you have to have people to do it.

"While we don't make movements as big as other processors - it all adds in once we are all at peak capacity.

"If we are all running at 70pc, then that 30pc is going to drag behind."

Mr Whitehouse said storage shortages had always been an issue in Perth.

He said while the shortage had only been heightened in COVID years, the real impact was the shipping delays and ability to load containers.

"I think ships are 30pc behind on destination schedules, which ties up containers for longer."

So what more can be done?

Well, quite obviously issues with labour shortages, shipping schedules and the delay in accessing containers need to be addressed.

But the real questions are - when and how?

Meat & Livestock Australia market information analyst Ripley Atkinson reported WA lamb slaughter as operating five per cent softer than 2021 levels, amounting to a reduction in year-to-date terms of 70,000-head.

Mr Atkinson said this demonstrated the significant challenges processors had faced with absenteeism rates due to COVID-19 and influenza, as well as an array of other workforce issues.

Although year-to-date slaughter was lower compared to last year, he said numbers were 10,000-head higher than 2020.

"This shows the sheep flock's rebuild in WA is occurring and in doing so delivering more lamb supply, regardless of processor issues,'' Mr Atkinson said.

"Although year-to-date slaughter is lower compared to 2021, recent WA lamb slaughter volumes for the past eight weeks are operating 10pc - or 30,000-head - higher than the corresponding eight weeks in 2021.

"This information shows how processors are continuing to work through the backlog of the 2021 lamb cohort during a time of the year that is traditionally reserved for less supply.

"This unseasonable high supply is a direct result of the strong rebuilding intentions and results occurring in WA's sheep industry at present."

Elders Lake Grace/Dumbleyung livestock agent Graeme 'Spock' Taylor said he had new season lambs from clients which were ready to go.

However, Mr Taylor was still working through a huge number of old season lambs, some that hadn't even been booked in for processing yet.

He said there was at least a three-week wait to have those lambs killed.

"We are very lucky in the fact, we have had a great season," Mr Taylor said.

"Otherwise it would be diabolical because where would the sheep go?

"I'm only a messenger like all the other agents, but I book space every year.

"Normally, I have 10,000 suckers ready to go now and the number is growing."

Mr Taylor said while he - and other agents - were trying their best to work through numbers, they couldn't make more space than what was available.

To put it simply, he said it was a backlog of "everything".

Mr Taylor said you could understand the processors, who weren't running at full capacity, so they were getting frustrated as well.

"The frustration gets passed onto the producer and it all just snowballs," he said.