Wool industry to undertake national campaign to attract young rural people to shearing shed roles

WA Wool Training Advisory Group representatives have flagged the idea of a national campaign to promote the shearing industry to young rural people, especially those from sheep farming backgrounds.

WA WoolTAG chair Chris Patmore said he, along with WA Shearing Industry Association president Darren Spencer and secretary Valerie Pretzel attended the National WoolTAG meeting in Sydney last month where they put forward the concept to their eastern states counterparts.

“The WA team put forward the proposal to start a national campaign to promote the wool harvesting industry to young rural people, particularly those with farming backgrounds,” Mr Patmore said.

“This is an easy area to target with good results in years gone by but has probably been overlooked in more recent years.”

Mr Patmore said there was “unanimous support” for the idea at the meeting of national delegates but it was “too early” for anything to be put in place.

Meanwhile, Australian Wool Innovation has uploaded a minute long wool harvesting video on its Facebook page and website, which features young people in the shearing shed and discusses the roles, conditions and pay that they can expect when working in the industry.

The video was seen as a way of reaching younger people and spark their interest in learning more.

An AWI spokesman said the more sources of information and encouragement the better for the industry.

Mr Patmore said the National TAG has a much wider scope than the State TAGs, which are solely focused on shearer and woolhandler training.

“The National group covers everything to do with wool harvesting,” he said.

“The biggest benefit of the national meetings is to mix with the other state TAG chairs and compare ideas and discuss progress in formalising the structure of training in the wool harvesting industry.

“WA is making good progress, having developed a set of selection criteria to select candidates for our training programs — which is helpful when our schools are oversubscribed.”

Mr Patmore said another recent initiative has been the development of a student database to allow regular follow up of students with the aim of improving retention rates.

He said the issue of visa pathways for overseas workers and the need to quantify worker requirements was also discussed at the meeting.

Mr Spencer and Ms Pretzel had the opportunity to present the WASIA developed and AWI funded, Safe Sheds program, which he said was well received by delegates with dates organised for them to present to eastern states organisations as part of a national roll out.

The Safe Sheds program, which was developed in 2017, aims to improve shearing sheds across the country, which will improve working conditions for shearing teams as well as animal welfare.

Mr Spencer said shed conditions were an inhibiting factor in attracting and retaining staff.

Mr Patmore said the live export trade phase out by the federal Government was also discussed, which was recognised to have “big implications for the wool industry in WA if a phase out comes”.

“There is already some effect due to the lack of confidence in the industry,” he said.

The next National WoolTAG meeting is scheduled for October.