Livestock (Sheep)

Managing stock

Seasonal labour is the most profitable use of labour in broadacre crop dominant farms

Many broadacre farms in Western Australia (WA) experience problems in attracting and retaining farm labour. A survey of WA farmers (Rabobank 2007) reported that of the 69 percent of farmers who required additional labour over the previous 12 months, 14 percent said it was ‘impossible’ to find labour. A further 62 percent said they had experienced some difficultly attracting adequate labour. To overcome this labour shortage, 41% of the survey (more)...

Farmers do not want to outsource their sheep enterprise

In many regions in Western Australia farm size is increasing and there is less labour available. To combat this many farmers are putting more priority into cropping and less effort into their less profitable enterprises such as livestock production. The resulting decrease in stocking rates makes the enterprise even less profitable. The farmers are also less likely to establish perennial pastures due to the perceived workload increase. One solution to this problem is for farmers to get a professional (more)...

How Woolgrowers Manage native vegetation & biodiversity on New England wool properties

In 2003, the Land, Water & Wool Northern Tablelands Project (NSW) conducted a survey of woolgrowers in southern New England.

The survey aimed to find out what woolgrowers thought about biodiversity in relation to wool production, how woolgrowers manage their farms in ways that affect biodiversity, and what it would take for them to adopt management practices that would enhance biodiversity.

An Australian Wool innovation: "Healthy Soils" Training Module

Past research identified a significant gap in profitability between the ‘top 20%’ and the average sheep producer of between $20 and $37 per sry sheep equivalent. Evidence showed this gap was due to the adoption of best practices by the top 20% of sheep producers. A long history of investment in research and development by the wool and sheepmeat industries means that much of the information, technologies and tools to allow sheep producers to significantly increase sustainability (more)...

Land Water and Wool Case Study: Melissa Rebbeck, SARDI

Farming in the first decade of the 21st century in Australia is as challenging now as it was 100 years ago, but the grab-bag of tools that help farmers manage for drought and flood is growing. South Australian wool, wheat and barley growers Susan and Ben Carn are making the most of these tools. They farm 8000 hectares running 4000 to 5000 sheep in a low rainfall area at Quorn, north of the infamous Goyder’s Line of Rainfall, the demarcation established in 1865 above which anything (more)...

Land Water and Wool Case Study: Brendan Lunney, Yass

Brendon Lunney remembers reading as a schoolboy about how water was washing away Australia’s farmland. He grew up, studied arts and seemed bound for other things when, at the age of 27, he bought a farm. Now, three decades later, the reality of his early school learning and the devastation wrought by water washing through eroding gullies have become all too apparent. Measurements logged by scientists funded by the Land, Water and Wool program on his farm “Bogolara”, near (more)...

Land Water and Wool Case Study: Benalla

Agricultural researcher Jim Moll has seen first-hand the benefits of woolgrowers taking a whole farm approach to agronomy, economics and the environment. Jim was responsible for crunching the economic numbers in Land, Water & Wool’s groundbreaking study of how to run stock more profitably while improving the environment in the hill country of central Victoria. Land, Water and Wool was a $20 million national program which aimed to boost the sustainability (more)...

A summary, in poster form, of all the 70 SGSL Producer sites in Western Australia

Sustainable Grazing on Saline Lands (SGSL) Producer Network was set up to help livestock producers better understand and manage their saline land through a range of activities. This book contains a complete summary, in poster form, of all 70 SGSL grower trials in WA. T hese posters were prepared and presented at the 2004 SGSL spring field days and represent each of the (more)...