Bruce Mullan, Director Sheep Industry Development, talks about the exciting opportunities for the Western Australian sheep industry.
I want to talk to you today about the Sheep Industry Business Innovation project which is funded by Royalties for Regions to the tune of $10 million dollars over four years. It really came about because the Sheep Industry Leadership Council, which formed in 2012 by the state government, put together a strategic plan about how they could double the value of the sheep industry between now and 2025; so in 10 years, driving industry from $1 billion to $2 billion dollars’ worth of value.
So the Royalties for Regions project is very much about how we can deliver the tasks and the strategies in that document, and in the past we would have been focused very much on how we can produce more product. So very much driven by producers and not having any strong links through to the market. This project is very much driven from the market pull, it's us understanding more about what it is about markets like China for example, what is it about their market that they want in terms of product, product quality and therefore can we produce it. So for example we've got a group of about nine producers currently in China learning about that industry and bringing that message back to other producers, so that we can meet that market requirement which is 500,000 lambs which is a huge ask for our industry, especially when you look at our numbers of sheep that have halved in the last 20 years and so there are people who are saying well the industry's had it’s day, we are all into grain production - well I think the sheep industry’s got a very bright future and this project is going to deliver on that by making it very clear where producers should be looking to invest, it’s about giving producers and everyone in the supply chain the confidence that the sheep industry in Western Australia has got a golden opportunity to deliver on export markets and this project will deliver that and we're asking everyone to get involved with it and to play their part in what I think is a very exciting future for the sheep industry.
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