Sheep Producers Australia’s Bonnie Skinner on animal husbandry, mulesing

Sheep Producers Australia chief Bonnie Skinner has promised a proactive approach to maximise the recent successes within the industry.

The sheep meat industry has been warned its stellar performance could prove to be the biggest threat to its ongoing success.

Newly appointed Sheep Producers Australia chief executive Bonnie Skinner said the danger in highly successful times was “becoming complacent”.

Traceability, market access, the dependence on exports, labour shortages and even climate change were just some of the issues that could broadside the industry at a moment’s notice and being prepared was essential.

Ms Skinner said there was a lot to celebrate in the production of a premium product like sheep meat, but there was no room for complacency.

New Sheep Producers Australia chief executive Bonnie Skinner. Picture: Supplied

And the risk in not being proactive around issues, like animal husbandry, left the industry exposed.

“We do need to be cognisant of monitoring those potential issues that are on the horizon,” Ms Skinner said.

“Animal husbandry practises, and not just mulesing but other essential practices such as tail docking and castration, could become a focus.

“We need to understand and constantly monitor what the global customer and consumer attitudes and expectations are towards these practices.”

Ms Skinner said it was important to consider the capacity of those consumers, whether domestic or in export markets, to influence regulation.

“We’ve seen in the wool industry strong market signals for non-mulesed wool,” she said.

“I don’t think we are quite there yet on scale for the lamb industry but certainly there is evidence, especially in the global marketplace, that there are people who are asking more questions and genuinely interested in the practices we do here in Australia.”

There was a risk, Ms Skinner said, in not being prepared for those who wished to challenge currently accepted animal management practises.

“We have case studies from other industries where there has been a point at which public scrutiny and regulatory intervention has caused a pretty big change across the industry, whether that be the live export, pork, poultry or racing,” she said.

“We need to understand the public concerns from the community around animal welfare and how quickly these can lead to governments responding with regulation.”

Ms Skinner said most producers did not want to be impacted by regulation and needed to be prepared to acknowledge and act on emerging trends based around consumer expectations.

“It is difficult when it comes to proactively responding to these sorts of issues as producers might want to see a strong market signal before they make a practice change,” she said.

“For us (SPA) to try to argue that there are potential risks, and they may be coming towards us quickly, can be difficult, but then we can also be criticised for not responding to those risks in a proactive way.

“What is their (producers) motivation to change when things are going well, and they are profitable?

Ms Skinner said the sheep industry had a bright future and SPA’s priorities were having strong policies in place that supported what “producers needed and what our consumers expect”.

“Everything we do as an organisation is to position the industry to be sustainable and profitable into the future,” she said.