Shoppers have been warned to expect to pay more for lamb at the supermarket, as the sheep industry prepares for a future without live exports.
Increasing frustration at a slowdown in meat processing and longer-term concerns about the viability of the West Australian sheep meat industry without live export have pushed some sheep traders like Richard Brown to leave the sheep industry.
Mr Brown said he was turning about 8,000 head of sheep off his Dandaragan farm each year. Most were sold to processors while some went to the live trade.
He said the sheep industry in Western Australia would shrink without its "backbone" of live export, and it would be lamb consumers who would pay the price at the supermarket.
Mr Brown said he expected the sheep flock to shrink and the local supply of meat to become difficult as more farmers moved out of the industry.
The $136 million live sheep export industry has been put on notice by the new federal Labor government, saying it will phase out the industry.
Mr Brown said the live export sector was critical to sheep producers as it provided a secondary market for sheep that could not be sold as lambs to butchers and he said live export competition kept prices to a point to make the industry viable and worthwhile.
Others will do the same: analyst
Thomas Elder Markets meat market analyst Matt Dalgleish agreed the WA sheep flock would decline without live trade.
He said there was a range of factors pushing WA farmers out of sheep, including the volatility of sheep pricing and difficulty accessing services like shearing or transport and processing space.
"There are also a lot of issues around labour in abattoirs, so I think a lot of farmers are going to make the same decisions Richard Brown is making — to get out of the industry," he said.
"It will come to a stage, I think, where you will start to question how sustainable the [WA sheep] sector is.
"As the industry contracts it gets harder and harder and it starts to force the decision of others who might have wanted to stick around."
Mr Dalgleish said overseas demand for boxed Australian lamb and mutton was very strong, and that was pushing up prices in Australian supermarkets.
"We've already seen a trend over the past two decades of significantly reduced per capita consumption of lamb and sheep meat in Australia.
"If you go back two decades ago we were eating around 18kg per person per year of mutton and lamb. We are now looking at 6kg per person of lamb, and the mutton is virtually non-existent.
"It is becoming more and more of a niche purchase. Gone are the days where you'd sit around and have a Sunday lamb.
'Other opportunities'
Nutrien livestock manager for WA Leon Giglia believed the WA sheep flock would not shrink without live export.
Nutrien currently handles more than half of all sheep transactions that take place in WA.
"I can't understand what are the key drivers that are going to suppress the price when there is demand for the product elsewhere," he said.
Mr Giglia said he believed the WA flock would remain at its current level of around 14 million head, backed by increasing demand from overseas markets.
"So we, as an industry, need to come to terms with that, and we need to transition, and I think there is plenty of opportunity for us to transition through that."
