Australia Will Ban Live Sheep Exports

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What Will This Mean for The Industry?

by Guest Post 21 May, 2024 2:30 pm

white sheep on green grass during daytime

Photo credit: Sam Carter. The BFD.

OPINION

Alan Renwick

Professor of Agricultural Economics, Lincoln University, New Zealand

This month the federal government announced a plan to ban live sheep exports, set to come into effect from May 1 2028.

The announcement coincided with the release of a highly anticipated report by an independent panel set up to examine the issue.

Animal welfare advocates immediately hailed the news, having long campaigned for a ban.

But farming organisations have expressed deep concerns about its potential impact on the sector. They’ve also argued the four-year transition window won’t be nearly enough time to adjust.

Despite being something of an early mover, Australia is not the first country to implement a live export ban.

Neighbouring New Zealand imposed a total ban on live animal exports, which came into full effect in April last year.

In December, the United Kingdom also put forward legislation to ban live exports for slaughter and fattening. The issue continues to gain momentum across the European Union.

So are such bans really a death knell for the sheep industry, as is sometimes argued, or just an inevitable part of a necessary transition?

A deepening urban–rural divide

One of the earliest impacts of this proposal has been to ramp up tensions in Australia between state and federal governments, as well as between urban and rural communities.

Western Australia singlehandedly accounts for 99% of Australia’s live sheep exports. Groups opposed to the ban have framed it as just another example of Australia’s “inner city” east coast dictating terms to rural Western Australians.

But this “west versus the rest” narrative could itself be misleading.

Polling commissioned by the RSPCA found more than 70% of Western Australians were in favour of a ban, perhaps reflecting a more general urban-rural divide on the issue.

Will it really crush the sheep industry?

The size of the ban’s impact will obviously hinge on the importance of live exports to the sheep sector more generally, and the industry’s scope for adjustment. Adaptation could mean shifting this supply to the domestic processing market or expanding other enterprises.

Proponents of the ban argue that live exports are only a small component of the sheep industry. According to government figures, Australia’s lamb and mutton export industry was worth A$4.5 billion in 2023.

But live sheep exports by sea made up less than 2% of this trade, at around $77 million. To further emphasise this point, advocates of a ban have pointed out this trade equates to only 0.1% of Australia’s total agricultural exports.

In contrast, opponents of the ban would say these aggregate Australian figures significantly downplay live export’s economic importance to WA.

Despite a marked decline over the past decade, the sector still accounts for an estimated 5.4% of the state’s total sheep industry exports.

The live export market offers producers other benefits too. The ability to sell sheep to an alternative market can enhance the bargaining power of farmers when dealing with domestic processors.

In Ireland, where processing capacity is highly concentrated, the agriculture sector has fought vigorously to keep the live export trade.

Exporting live sheep is also an avenue for farmers in dry periods when feed is short.

How much should the industry be compensated?

The potential economic impact of the ban has been highly contested, but most estimates acknowledge there will be a financial loss.

The independent panel gave particular weight to the estimates generated for the WA government. These put the cost at around $123 million a year if no substitution of other enterprises took place, or $22 million a year if farmers turned to crop production.

When spread out on a per-farm basis, the losses estimated by some studies may appear relatively small.

But current financial and climatic challenges in the region are intense, and even small reductions in revenue could push some businesses and their owners past a tipping point.

The government has proposed a $107 million package to aid the transition, which includes $64.6 million to help sheep producers capitalise on existing and emerging opportunities, and $27 million to boost marketing of sheep products domestically and internationally.

The support is not just targeted at farmers. The government acknowledges that businesses right across the supply chain – hauliers, stock traders, feed producers – will all be impacted by the ban.

How effective this support will be depends on how it is implemented, the extent of its uptake, and how effectively it can soften the transition.

The planned marketing support will have a much more indirect impact, with considerable uncertainty as to how much the forecast losses can actually be offset by boosting demand.

Given the uncertainty around the actual costs that will be incurred, it is hard to assess the adequacy of the payments. Federal Agriculture Minister Murray Watt sees them as generous, pointing out that $107 million is five times the lower band estimate of annual losses.

The WA government, in contrast, has argued that the transition payments are wholly inadequate.

But in New Zealand, there were no transition payments associated with the export ban, and none appear to have been proposed in the UK either.

The situation in Australia reflects the historic importance of the live export sector to the sheep supply chain.

What’s next?

As part of the sheep industry’s social licence to operate, it would seem wise for businesses to plan for a future without live exports. Simultaneously, policymakers should work to increase the resilience of the sector against the significant financial and climatic challenges that it faces.

But politics is a fickle beast. In New Zealand, the recently elected coalition have now flagged plans to reverse the country’s ban, under sustained pressure from industry.

Australia’s National Party has already indicated that they too will push for a reversal.

While it is clear that a majority of the population are against live exports, that majority can be slimmer than one might think. A recent poll in New Zealand put support for the ban at just 51%.

Ultimately, this sort of political uncertainty is only likely to reduce the incentives for businesses to adjust.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

A 50,000-Year-Old Block of Ice Paints the Most Chilling Picture of the Future Ever

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Scientists dove into the past and found evidence that puts our present crisis into sobering perspective.BY DARREN ORFPUBLISHED: MAY 21, 2024 7:30 AM EDTbookmarksSAVE ARTICLE

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a60819842/50000-year-old-block-of-ice/

melting icecaps global warming

Peter Dazeley//Getty Images

  • Scientists from the Oregon State University conducted chemical analyses on air bubbles trapped within the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide ice core.
  • They discovered that, in the last glacial period, Earth experienced its highest CO2 increase: 14 parts per million in just 55 years. Not, our planet experiences that increase every five years.
  • The mechanism of these natural CO2 increases suggest that increasing westerly winds in the Southern hemisphere could weaken the Southern Ocean’s ability to absorb CO2.

A favorite refrain among the dwindling number of climate deniers is that increases in temperature and carbon dioxide levels are a natural part of the Earth’s atmospheric cycle. And while the planet has certainly seen some rise and falls in both of those metrics over thousands (and even millions) of years, what the planet is currently experiencing far outstrips everything that has come before.

In a new study published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), scientists from Oregon State University identified the fastest natural rates of CO2 rise over the past 50,000 years. To do this, the research team tapped into bubbles of air trapped in West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide ice core that essentially preserved the delicate balance of gasses present in Earth’s atmosphere at the time of their icy entombment.

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The team had to drill some 2 miles deep to get enough ice to study a 50,000 year time span. After conducting an extensive chemical analysis, the researchers discovered just how extreme and outlier the current rising CO2 levels fueling our current climate crisis are compared to the rest of Earth’s recent geologic history.

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“Studying the past teaches us how today is different. The rate of CO2 change today really is unprecedented,” OSU’s Kathleen Wendt, the lead author of the study, said in a press statement. “Our research identified the fastest rates of past natural CO2 rise ever observed, and the rate occurring today, largely driven by human emissions, is 10 times higher.”

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During the most recent glacial period, CO2 levels rose 14 parts per million in the span of roughly 55 years—today, a similar increase takes only 5 or 6 years.

Usually—that is, when humans aren’t sowing the seeds of own climate destruction—the Earth experiences periodic increases in CO2 levels due to an effect known as Heinrich Events. Named after German marine geologist Hartmut Heinrich, these events coincide with a cold spell in the North Atlantic caused by icebergs breaking off from the Laurentide Ice Sheet. This causes a kind of chain reaction that leads to a change in global climate patterns.

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“We think [Heinrich events] are caused by a dramatic collapse of the North American ice sheet,” OSU’s Christo Buizert, a co-author on the study, said in a press statement. “This sets into motion a chain reaction that involves changes to the tropical monsoons, the Southern hemisphere westerly winds and these large burps of CO2 coming out of the oceans.”

This small bit about westerly winds is particularly bad news. Climate models suggest that these winds will only increase as the planet warms, meaning the Southern Ocean could lose a lot of its much-needed carbon dioxide-absorbing ability.

While this news is all definitely one big climate bummer, maybe there’s at least some hope that this last vestige of climate denialism will finally face oblivion, and humanity can focus on the hard and necessary work of cleaning up our mess.

The Doomsday Glacier in Antarctica is melting faster than scientists thought

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Doyle Rice

USA TODAY

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/weather/2024/05/20/doomsday-glacier-melting-more/73769960007/

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More unsettling news from the bottom of the world.

Scientists have uncovered evidence of “vigorous melting” at Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier, according to a new study published Monday. And for the first time, there is visible evidence that shows warm seawater pumping underneath the glacier.

The Thwaites Glacier, part of the vast West Antarctic Ice Sheet, is one of the world’s fastest-changing and most unstable glaciers. It’s called the Doomsday Glacier because of its potential to dramatically raise sea levels in places such as Florida, and it has been studied for years as an indicator of human-caused climate change.

Study results also suggest the Antarctic Ice Sheet is more vulnerable to a warming ocean than previously thought, and, worryingly, may “require a reassessment of sea-level rise projections.”

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A ‘most unstable place’

“Thwaites is the most unstable place in the Antarctic and contains the equivalent of 60 centimeters (two feet) of sea-level rise,” said study co-author Christine Dow of the University of Waterloo in Ontario. “The worry is that we are underestimating the speed that the glacier is changing, which would be devastating for coastal communities around the world.”

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To conduct the study, scientists used high-resolution satellite radar data to find evidence of the intrusion of warm, high-pressure seawater many miles beneath the grounded ice of Thwaites glacier.

Study lead author Eric Rignot of the University of California−Irvine told USA TODAY that there’s much more seawater flowing into the glacier than had been previously thought. These “intrusions make the glacier more sensitive to ocean warming, and more likely to fall apart as the ocean gets warmer.”

Future projections of global sea-level rise will have to include this new data, Rignot said. “The projections will go up,” he said.

Scientists have uncovered evidence of "vigorous melting" at Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier, according to a new study published Monday.

Rising seas, swamped cities

As it melts, Thwaites could cause ocean levels to rise as much as 2 feet, researchers say. But the glacier is also a natural dam to other ice in West Antarctica. If that ice is released into the oceans, levels could rise 10 feet, researchers estimate.

https://cm.usatoday.com/article-body/inline-desktop_051424_MemorialDay

Such a rise would put many of the world’s coastal cities underwater. According to the new study, it “will gravely impact populations in many low-lying areas like Vancouver, Florida, Bangladesh and low-lying Pacific islands, such as Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands.”