IMAGINE lifting stocking rates and weaning percentages to produce 30 per cent more lambs and halve your ewe mortality rate.

That's exactly what 300 producers, managing a total of two million Merino and crossbred ewes across Australia, have achieved since taking a Lifetime Ewe Management course.

The course was run by Rural Industries Skill Training in conjunction with the Sheep Co-operative Research Centre.

Meat and Livestock Australia sheep research and development manager Alex Ball said the ability to optimise a breeding flock could lead to productivity improvements of $50,000 per enterprise.

"After two years of participating in LTEM, producers demonstrated an average benefit of $50 per hectare," Alex said.

"That included increased lambs weaned ($23.90), stocking rate and ewe wool increases worth $18.70, reductions in ewe mortality ($5.70) and better wool from Merino lambs ($1.10)."

The LTEM course links lamb potential with ewe nutrition at joining, during pregnancy and weaning and provides participants with the tools to match feeding regimes with varying stock requirements.

FarmReady assistance is available, cutting the cost from $1900 to $400.

Darren and Kylie Schurmann, who run a mixed prime lamb and cropping business near Hamilton, said the course had helped them maximise ewe efficiency and increase overall productivity.

The Schurmanns have increased lamb marking rates by 15 per cent (to 140 per cent), cut feed costs by a third and increased stocking rates by 25 per cent.

From their 2000 breeding ewes, they achieved 2800 second-cross Poll Dorset lambs.

Sheep Genetics manager Sam Gill said increases in on-farm productivity were more important than ever in meeting global demand for lamb and mutton.

"We're in a period where every ewe counts, every lamb counts, in maximising on-farm productivity," Sam said.

He said there was "a huge amount of scope" in productivity gains to be made before global supply would be fulfilled.

And skills taught at the on-farm level in the LTEM courses would be supplemented by industry advances in genetic tools.

A new tool for determining lambing ease - central to ewe production and lamb survival - would continue to identify those rams that produced daughters that were better mothers, he said.

Prototypes for determining eating quality, including intramuscular fat, would also be available in the next three months.

Sam said the course provided vital data, especially at a time when more producers, buoyed by improved profitability, were re-entering the industry.