WA Ag Minister calls on Minister Watt to help sheep producers

WA Agriculture Minister, Jackie Jarvis, has written to her Federal counterpart, Murray Watt, to call for a delay to this season's live export shipping moratorium start date – to give struggling WA sheep farmers a lifeline to sell their livestock.

The extra time would allow sheep farmers to sell more livestock at a time they desperately need a market.

The WA industry is in dire straits with increasing reports of farmers shooting sheep on-farm, due to a lack of processing space and markets to sell sheep - nor do they have the necessary feed reserves to keep them due to drought conditions.

Minister Jarvis wrote to Minister Watt with her request after convening the Western Australian Dry Season Taskforce on Friday, April 19.

The taskforce identified that WA sheep producers have excess stock in the system and
"need a relief valve".

Minister Jarvis, in her letter, called for an "extension of 10 days from the 14th of June until the 24th June 2024, before the commencement of this year's restrictions, subject to favourable
weather conditions in the Northern Hemisphere and the usual animal welfare considerations".

The continued struggles in the west were again shown in significantly lower market prices for WA stock this week.

Meat & Livestock Australia's Restocker Lamb Indicator was sitting at 227.35c/kg for WA as of 3pm on Wednesday, whereas the NSW equivalent was 578.11c/kg.

An opportunity to sell into even one extra live export ship could be beneficial to the state's struggling producers.

CEO of The Australian Livestock Exporters’ Council (ALEC), Mark Harvey-Sutton said that the support from Western Australia signaled the importance of the livestock export trade which is sorely needed at a time when the industry was lacking confidence.

“It is pleasing to see Minister Jarvis and the Western Australian Premier, Roger Cook, acknowledge that live export is important to Western Australia and nationally,” he said.

“Indeed, Roger Cook said in Parliament that ‘we have joined the community in lobbying the Federal Government about the potential ban on live sheep exports'. It’s good to see that the WA Government is on our side.”

“We welcome their support and it’s clear that they understand that the trade provides a vital outlet for farmers to sell their stock in times of low domestic prices,” he said.

Mr Harvey-Sutton said that industry had repeatedly warned that the phase out policy was having a direct impact on market conditions by eroding confidence.

He said the Federal Government had been warned of this for the past 12 months at least and has “ignored it and refused to accept any responsibility”.

“The situation we see today is all of industry’s warnings coming to fruition, and we call on the Albanese Government to finally start listening to WA farmers.”

Minister Watt was contacted regarding a response to Minister Jarvis’ request, however, no reply was received by time of publication.

Botulism may not be cause of on-ship deaths

Meanwhile, investigations into the death of more than 100 head of cattle onboard a live export ship last month have suggested the likely cause of death was due to a parasitic disease known as coccidiosis.

The 100 herd of NT cattle died onboard the ship, while another 50 died at an export depot near Darwin.

The cattle came from a station near Ti Tree in Central Australia and were trucked north to Darwin. They stayed in Darwin for a couple of weeks before boarding the live export vessel on route to Indonesia.

Reports originally stated the cattle had probably died of botulism. However, NT Chief Vet Officer, Dr Rob Williams confirmed to ABC Rural that while he could not "definitively rule out botulism", there was evidence the likely cause was coccidiosis.