Westcoast Wools broker Brad Faithfull believes soaring sheep prices are indicative of a strong industry

WA sheep prices are soaring and so are Brad Faithfull’s hopes for the wool industry after a challenging start to the year. The 30-year veteran of the industry, who cut his teeth auctioneering before stepping into brokering in 2000 with Westcoast Wools, said rising sheep prices meant the wool industry was here to stay. While not quite matching the record highs of the Eastern States, WA sheep prices are strong. Heavy lambs topped $237 at the Katanning Regional Saleyards on June 4 and $225 at Muchea Livestock Centre on June 10. The Westcoast Wools director said the improvement in the meat market has come at a perfect time. “The forward price for this season’s lamb are becoming quite extreme, which is really good and encouraging for the sheep industry,” he said. “At the end of the day, if you can get really strong prices for livestock, it just means farmers will stick with it and the wool will be a really good bonus.” Australian wool prices have struggled to surge far beyond the 1200c/kg mark in recent years, with the EMI last hitting 1310c/kg in May 2023 — well below the 1400c/kg price achieved in May 2022. But Mr Faithfull said on a positive note, the market was doing better than this time last year for 18 microns and broader. “I’ve been in the game 30 years, I’ve seen some highs and some real lows, some good markets and some average markets but overall, when you look at a year on year, the market isn’t in too bad of a position,” he said. It’s been a challenging few years for wool producers, with confidence dipping on the back of the Albanese Government’s plan to ban live sheep exports by May 1, 2028. WA’s flock has declined from 12.5 million to 9.4 million head during the past three years, while sheep and lamb turnoff reached 6.5 million in 2024 — a 13 per cent jump from 2023. However, there has been increasing industry sentiment farmers who stayed in sheep will be rewarded in the next 12 to 18 months, slowly drowning out concerns of a continued mass exodus from the WA industry. Mr Faithfull said he agreed wholeheartedly with the positive sentiment. “It’s already starting with the price of sheep the way it is and it’s only going to continue to get stronger because we are starting to get a lot of Eastern States inquiry too,” he said. “When the rains start up again, they’re going to want to restock their numbers and they’ll come to WA to do that which is only going to put more and more pressure back on the sheep market pricing and keep pushing it up.” Mr Faithfull said he had already noticed that his customers were diversifying their sheep practices even before the live sheep export ban announcement. He said many of his customers will be seriously affected while many others had accepted it and had geared their businesses accordingly. “I feel it’s a great time to be in the industry at the moment,” he said. “It’s going to be expensive to get back into sheep in the future but if you’ve still got stock on hand, it’s a great opportunity to continue to grow your flock. “Anyone who’s in them now are going to be strongly rewarded — there’s no doubt about that.” Mr Faithfull said it was paramount to remain positive, even when times are tough. “A wise old man told me many years ago when I started my business, ‘if you remain positive, you’ll always succeed’,” he said. “When we compare our businesses against where we started nearly 30 years ago . . . we’ve built a great business and we’ve got an awesome set of clientele and we’re still experiencing growth.”