MEAT & Livestock Australia has offered a positive portrayal of the 2025 Australian Sheep Sustainability Framework report while not disclosing significant data gaps in key metrics, including animal welfare practices and deforestation.

The framework’s 2025 report was published online yesterday, a SSF Consultative Committee Forum webinar held, and a media release this morning claimed the framework “continues to evolve as a practical tool for tracking whole of industry performance, supporting transparency, and informing investment and improvement across the value chain.”

The release said the 2025 report outlined key achievements and challenges across animal welfare, environmental stewardship, workforce wellbeing, and financial resilience. It also introduced new metrics to better reflect industry performance, including lamb survival, conservation practices, and community connectedness.

SSF Steering Group chair, Dr Scott Williams, was quoted as saying the SSF has undergone important changes, including a revision of its materiality assessment and the strengthening of its governance and technical expertise.

“A major piece of work this year was the revision of the materiality assessment on which the Framework is based.

“We’ve made progress in expanding our metrics and refining our focus areas to better reflect industry needs and stakeholder expectations,” he said.

Webinar revealed a different story

However, Dr Williams’ presentation in the webinar revealed a different picture, when he admitted the framework did not have up-to-date figures on the percentage of producers who mules their sheep.

This meant Australia’s sheep and wool industry does not know how many producers are surgically mulesing their sheep or using pain relief in the flystrike prevention process, only the percentage of wool declared as non-mulesed wool from 2024 to 2025 – from 17.9pc to 18.6pc of the Merino clip and from 43.7pc to 47.1pc of non-Merino wool, “giving some sort of a read on what’s happening.”

“This is a pretty imperfect measure because there is a pretty high non-declaration rate; this relies on people deciding to declare the mulesing status of their flock when they make their wool available for sale … and I think from memory, we’re stuck at an adoption rate of about 50pc or something,” Dr Williams said.

He said the participation in voluntary product integrity schemes held steady at 14.9pc of the wool clip.

Framework aimed at minimizing regulation

Despite Dr Williams claiming that the framework was about “generally building trust between us and the rest of the pipeline”, he went on to say that it “also very importantly about anticipating and minimizing regulation.”

“If we can see what the issues are for our own industry and act to rectify those if we’ve got problems then we can get head off people imposing regulations on us to change practice.”

“Things you know like pain relief or particular practices, we can anticipate those and head them off.”

No 2025 data points on animal mulesing and pain relief rates

However, Dr Williams’ presentation indicated there were key animal welfare data gaps in the framework.

“The first thing I wanted to say is that there were no new data points this year for 31 out of the 82 metrics –

“And that’s for two main reasons, one, we didn’t have a new national producer survey since the last report and we rely on the national producer survey for quite a few of our metrics,” he said.

“So these are things like practices, you know are people mulesing, are they tail docking, castrating, what method are they using, are they using pain relief, do they have a predator management plan, things like that..

“All of those things rely on the national producer survey .. and there has been a two year gap between the last one and the next one,” Dr Williams said.

“So we will have a lot of that data next year, but we don’t have it this year.

“There has also been no Census and we several of our metrics, particularly in the people pillar, which is the third one, comes from the Census and obviously there hasn’t been another one of those in the last 12 months – so that’s another area where we don’t have new data points,” he said.

Dr Williams said the metric total of 82 is a bit of an overstatement because there are multiple metrics measuring some aspects, for example, there are four metrics around ground cover.

“In fact, the true number of metrics is probably closer to something in the low 50s.”

Dr Williams said this year about a quarter of the framework’s metrics showed directional improvement – 27pc.

“About another quarter held steady.

“We think that about 18pc showed a directional decline and for about 28pc we’ve got baseline data points.”

A ‘dynamic’ framework, but no survey until 2027

In later outlining the SSF strategic plan, MLA sustainability credentials and project manager Alister Hawksford noted the need for the SSF “to be agile and dynamic.”

“This is really important at the moment, I feel, with the changing landscape for sustainability; we’ve seen a number of things introduced over the last 12-24 months that mean that the whole landscape is evolving.

He said the SSF needs to ensure that it remains trusted, relevant and current, including around ESG issues and the EU deforestation requirements.

He said MLA wanted to ensure that by illustrating change or progress on the SSF strategic plan’s priorities “and where appropriate we need to recognize and applaud those that are positive in nature and for those that are possibly going in the wrong direction, we’d like to be able to draw attention for industry to be able to work or identify areas that they need to work on to possibly address some of those trends.”

However, in answering a questioner interested in an update on metric around painful procedures, Dr Williams said he understood the national producer survey would be run next year, but on behalf of MLA and Australian Wool Innovation, Mr Hawksford said the frequency of the survey has been shifted from biennial to every three years.

“And the steering group has made that decision based on not wanting to have too much variability in the results, so they shifted to a three-year cycle.

“So I don’t think it will be next year, I think the year after (2027), but I’ll have to double check that.”

The only mentions of variability in the 2025 report refer to climate variability and a statement on variability in producers deciding to mules.

“A producer’s decision to mules their sheep is often influenced by anticipated flystrike risk, which is affected by weather conditions. Hence, variability is expected from year to year.”

Dr Williams said due to the difficulty of getting reliable lamb survival data, the framework’s new metric for this was change in the Australian Sheep Breeding Value for weaning rate. And he said it was hoped to have a metric for sheep transported in line with animal welfare standards by next year.

No assessment on relevance to EU market access requirements

The media release said the framework “aligns with global reporting initiatives and standards, and contributes to Australia’s commitments under the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.”

However, during the webinar Dr Williams said the framework has not assessed the metrics in the framework for their relevance to market access negotiations, for example the European Union, which has expressed concern about animal welfare standard disparities with Australia. Australia is currently trying to finalise a free trade agreement with the EU.

Dr Williams said the framework board has not sat down specifically to do that sort of assessment.

“We’ve certainly had government staff involved in our consultative committee forums and speaking as guest speakers in how they’ve been used in free trade negotiations.

“We haven’t had any feedback specifically that we’re lacking in anything in the framework or that there is something else that’s needed.

“No, we haven’t, but it’s certainly something that we’re open to,” he said.

“Again this is about aligning with stakeholder needs, so if market access negotiators tell us that they need something more or something different we’re very open to that; it’s a very important function of the framework.”

Mr Hawksford said “an important part about the way that the annual report is structured is that they are trying to align as much as possible with the GRI – the Global Reporting Initiative – which means that the information in there is really tailored to be able to have those discussions internationally and to be able to refer back with some clarity on those.

“There certainly has been feedback from the minister’s office on the value of the framework reports in their discussions when they’re working abroad.”

No 2025 data, but “encouraging animal welfare trends”

Despite the lack of up-to-date producer survey data, the MLA release said the 2025 report showed encouraging trends in animal welfare, with increased use of pain management during husbandry procedures and a rise in the proportion of sheep processed through accredited welfare systems.

“This includes good progress on environmental metrics.

“Emission intensity in sheep meat processing declined by 15 percent, and water use per tonne dropped by 7pc, reflecting improved resource efficiency,” the release said.

MLA’s SSF media release said the industry faced headwinds, including a 6.6pc decline in the gross value of sheep meat production and a 10.3pc drop for wool. Investment in wool research and development also fell by 13pc to $28.8 million.

However, the release neglected to mention that the net emissions generated by the sheep industry increased by 1.97 million tonnes to 11.51Mt and the percentage of NRM regions achieving health groundcover thresholds declined 12.8pc to 51.3pc.

In the release, Dr Williams emphasised that sustainability must be grounded in economic viability.

“Sustainability starts with an industry being profitable and secure for all participants,” he said.

“The SSF continues to evolve to ensure it remains relevant and responsive to the needs of producers, processors, and stakeholders across the value chain.”

Who decided to extend the producer survey cycle to three years

The SSF is supported by Sheep Producers Australia, WoolProducers Australia, Meat & Livestock Australia, and Australian Wool Innovation.

Sheep Central asked MLA who sought the extension of the producer survey cycle to three years, the basis for the decision and whether a more regular survey is fundamental to the relevance of the framework’s role in assisting industry better understand its opportunities, challenges and impacts.

A response from an unidentified SSF spokesperson via MLA included that the decision to move the frequency of the producer survey from every two years to every three years was an operational decision made by MLA and AWI, who subsequently informed the steering group.

“The decision was based on:

• Financial considerations, ensuring the RDC budgets allocated to the SSF are appropriately divided across priority data collection, research, and communication/engagement activities;
• A desire to reduce the variability of results between surveys – if surveys are run too closely together, results can reflect annual fluctuations (e.g. climate) rather than an overall trend; and
• A desire to reduce producer survey fatigue, thereby increasing future survey response numbers and the quality of the results.”

The spokesperson said MLA and AWI review their investment priorities annually as part of their annual budget processes.

“The SSF works under a continual improvement principle and will be reviewing data availability and collection methods again in 2026.

“Both the steering group and the (SSF) board (including SPA and WPA) are a part of this process,” the statement said.

“Note for clarity: As per the Terms of Reference, the SSF Steering Group doesn’t make decisions, it makes recommendations to the (SSF) board for approval.

“RDCs action the board’s decisions within the context of their strategic plans and budgets.”

Download the 2025 SSF report here.