IT HAS been a long time since Australia has ridden on the sheep's back.
With declining sheep numbers, a stagnating wool market and plenty of alternative sources of fibre and protein, sheep producers need to work harder to meet consumer demands.
The national flock, estimated at 71.6 million, is the smallest it has been for more than a century.
Now Future Farm Industries CRC wants to tackle the problem head-on - via research - to predict the future of the Australian sheep industry.
Whether they will be able to tackle the issue of maintaining breeding flock numbers and convince producers to not replace wool sheep with meat sheep will be the big ask.
Holmes Sackett director and farm consultant Sandy McEachern says productivity gains on farm, rather than marketing, is the way to convince producers to remain in wool.
During the mid-1990s, the gross value of wool production was $4.29 billion, 10 times more than sheepmeat production.
Now sheepmeat production is slightly higher than wool in gross dollar terms, with wool making $2.112 billion a year and meat worth $2.115 billion annually.
"It is worrying that we are more focused on price marketing than productivity gains," Mr McEachern said.
"The wool industry, as the backbone of the sheep industry, has to find these productivity gains in order to survive.
"In the short-term, I believe we will continue to see a liquidation of the sheep flock, because people are moving away from wool, and high prices are not going to turn (the declining flock) around."
But he wouldn't be surprised if there was a "long-term turnaround in wool".
Increasing reproduction levels, retaining ewes and reducing sheep turn-off are all strategies, however with lamb - and particularly mutton - prices at high levels, it seems a difficult line to push.
FFI CRC research director Mike Ewing said a combination of factors, such as low wool prices at a time of high grain, meat and sheep export prices, coupled with drought, were behind the decline.
"Despite the decline in numbers, sheep (remain) important for high and sustained profits and risk minimisation, particularly on mixed crop-livestock farms," Dr Ewing said.
