An open letter to Murray Watt, Federal Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.
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I write to inform you of the deteriorating season conditions across the Western Australia agricultural areas, particularly in the South West and Great Southern regions, where much of the State's livestock is produced.
Last week 250 growers met in the hamlet of Yornup, which is situated in the Shire of Bridgetown-Greenbushes in the far south west of my electorate of O'Connor.
The meeting was convened by the Lower South West zone of the Western Australian Farmers' Federation (WAFarmers) and was attended by WAFarmers president John Hassell, Federal and State MPs, as well as concerned community members.
Farmers told of being squeezed between a record dry spring and summer season, record high supplementary feed prices and an inability to have livestock processed in local abattoirs, with lighter weight store animals having no commercial value.
This lack of market, and sky-rocketing feed prices, have led many farmers to either contemplate, or begin, destroying livestock.
Last week a farmer at Narrikup near my electorate's largest population centre of Albany posted on X that his neighbours had been over to excavate a large pit and he was about to begin destroying up to 3000 sheep.
Needless to say, this will have a devastating impact on the morale and mental health of my farming communities.
The discussion from the meeting most relevant to you as the Federal Minister, is the call for an extension to the live sheep shipping season beyond the June moratorium.
I have spoken to the live exporters operating out of the Fremantle port, and a two-week extension until the middle of June would allow at least one and potentially two extra voyages to leave Western Australia, taking an additional 100,000 sheep out of the State.
These sheep are generally lighter weight Merino wethers that have no current value to local processors.
The alternative for these sheep is to be euthanised and buried in an onfarm pit.
There is a recent precedent for an extension, when in June 2020, the departmental secretary granted a permit for the Al Kuwait to depart on June 16, due to the crew having been required to quarantine, following an outbreak of COVID-109 on the vessel.
The voyage produced outstanding results, with a mortality rate of 0.16 per cent.
Minister, the ships engaged in the live export trade are booked for voyages for months ahead and the window of opportunity to gain some extra capacity to assist WA sheep and cattle producers in a time of crisis is rapidly closing.
If you do not give a direction to your department secretary by the end of the month, these ships will be deployed to other nationals which export sheep to the Middle East, and Western Australian farmers will be the losers.
With no rain forecast in the short to medium term, I cannot over emphasise how important this decision is to the WA livestock industry and the hardworking decent farmers who will suffer enormous emotional harm if forced to destroy their livestock.
