Joint effort needed for the sheep industry

COLLABORATION will be critical to progressing future research and development within Australia’s sheep industry.

That’s according to James Rowe, chief executive of the Co-operative Research Centre for Sheep Industry Innovation, which will wind up on June 30 after 18 years.

Prof Rowe said without the CRC model driving a “sense of urgency and focus” collaboration within the nation’s sheep industry would be paramount.

“No organisation in its own right has enough resources to tackle major issues – like climate and predictive technology – and they aren’t solved by one company working isolated on them,” he said.

Prof Rowe said the CRC model worked because it was “put in place to implement a program designed by industry”.

The Sheep CRC was established in 2001 and had two extensions to its funding in 2007 and 2014. With some producers concerned about where research and development projects would end up, Prof Rowe said all of the products developed by the Sheep CRC had new homes.

South Australia sheep producer and Meat and Livestock Australia director Andrew Michael said he was not concerned with the Sheep CRC closing as it had done its job, but he was worried about the lack of uptake of new technology.

Mr Michael said collaboration would be key going forward, with “the more levy-payer funds that go into the one group (for research and development) the better”.

“We do so much research and we have great tools developed right through all of our industries, but the disjointed decision making (is a concern),” he said.

When the Sheep CRC closes just two CRCs related to agriculture will be left operating – for High Performance Soils and Food Agility.