Head Shepherd
Mark Ferguson from neXtgen Agri brings you the latest in livestock, genetics, innovation and technology. We focus on sheep and beef farming in Australia and New Zealand and the people doing great things in those industries.
Head Shepherd
Navigating Change in Farming with Bill Webb of Merinotech
If you farm Merinos in Australia, it’s more than likely you will have heard of Merinotech. And if you’ve heard of Merinotech, it's likely that you know our fantastic guest this week, Bill Webb.
For those that don’t know, Merinotech is an intensively recorded ram breeding nucleus founded in 1988 by a group of WA Merino breeders who wanted to breed a ram that thrived in their environment, backed up by a breeding plan and strategy that fully embraced the latest developments in breeding and genetics. The stud nucleus was established at Kojonup, Western Australia, with ewes from founding members and they have been applying those founding principles ever since. Merinotech rams are now some of the highest ranking in Australia for traits such as fat, eye muscle depth, worm resistance and weaning rate, as well as high-value wool traits.
Whilst Bill is still the chairman of Merinotech, he is no longer actively farming. Once his son Ben returned, Bill decided to hand over the reins straight away, “…so he didn't have my negativity or things like that impinging on his ability to work out what to do,” explains Bill.
“I felt I'd done as much as I could to improve profitability and productivity. I didn't know what needed to be done over the next 30 or 40 years and Ben needed to work that out for himself, which he has done very well. We had a good relationship and the idea was to move out and still be involved, but not being present and influencing his decision-making in one way or another. And I'd had several back operations, so trying to do something that didn't involve physical work and continuing to injure or hurt myself was another reason.”
And with a response to succession such as that, it’s no surprise that Bill re-trained as a psychologist for the second half of his working life. “Initially I was trying to do something I didn't have to study for to earn an income,” says Bill. “I was looking around, trying to work out what to do. I was going to facilitate family meetings for succession planning and conflict resolution, mediation sort of things. And it soon became obvious that people can handle one problem, one or two problems, but when problems become multiple issues that's when difficulty occurs. So psychology became a foundation to work from, to be able to help people work through life events essentially. So it became obvious that I did have to do some study. It took me seven years of full-time study to become registered and this is my 11th year of registration as a psychologist and I'm loving the work.”
Bill discusses some of the lessons he’s learned over the years in both careers and what he would do differently if he could do it all over again. “Family is terribly important,” emphasises Bill. “Often farmers see the farm as the central focus and the goose that laid the golden egg, which means that the work-life balance and family can be compromised. I think at the end of the day, our family is what we have and we have to treasure and cultivate the importance of the family unit.”
Merinotech is holding their next open day on 4 October 2024 at Kojonup.
Head Shepherd is brought to you by neXtgen Agri International Limited. We help livestock farmers get the most out of the genetics they farm with. Get in touch with us if you would like to hear more about how we can help you do what you do best: info@nextgenagri.com.
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Welcome Bill Webb to Head Shepard.
Speaker 2:It's good to be here, Mark.
Speaker 1:Excellent. Yeah, bill, before we're going to focus on Merino Tech because you've been heavily involved there for a number of years. But I think before we get into that, we might sort of head down your personal track for a little while, and you've had a couple of different careers, obviously farming being the first one, or the ones I know as your first one. But then you chose to retrain as a psychologist and do and move into counselling. So it'd be just yeah, we're just good to walk through that, I guess, from when going onto the farm and then leaving the farm and then the career since um, there were probably two reasons for um wanting to do a career change.
Speaker 2:One was about around the succession planning of the farm. So we decided when our son ben came back, um, I would do something else. So he wasn't uh, didn't have my negativity or things like that impinging on his ability to work out what to do. I felt I'd done as much as I could around improving profitability and productivity and and um, I didn't know what needed to be done over the next 30 or 40 years. And ben needed to work that out for himself, which he has done very well, and so we had a good relationship and the idea was to move out and still be involved, but not being present and influencing his decision-making in one way or another, and I'd had several back operations. So trying to do something that didn't involve physical work and continuing to injure or hurt myself was another reason for doing a career change.
Speaker 1:Yeah right. So you went back to some place where you could have easily just got a job in town. But you went back and studied psychology. Was that something you always wanted to do?
Speaker 2:No, Initially I was trying to do something I didn't have to do study for, to earn an income and not have to study. But in the research work I was looking around trying to work out what to do. I was going to facilitate family meetings for succession planning and conflict resolution, sort of mediation, sorts of things. And it soon became obvious that people can handle one problem, one or two problems, but when problems become multiple issues, that's when difficulty occurs. So psychology became a platform or a foundation to work from, to be able to help people work through life events essentially. And so it became obvious that I did have to do some study and it took me seven years of full-time study to become registered and this is my 11th year of registration as a psychologist and loving the work and enjoy doing it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's such valuable work. Uh, yeah, such valuable work. Yeah, such a a significant career shift. I don't know many farmers that think that, that they're going to be a psychologist one day. But, uh, I guess it reminds me of my father, who could turn his hand to anything and but, uh, but yeah, it's, um, yeah, really intriguing. And I think that point on on problem stacking up is is really important. It's we can all handle one little setback, but when they multiply it becomes pretty tough. If we move on to Marinotech and it'd be good just for those who haven't heard the story of, I guess, sort of from AMS through to where we are today around Marinotech, I guess back when Marinotech formed, what were the group of farmers they were trying to achieve, achieve when they came together.
Speaker 2:Well, the AMS had a national approach and the commercial growers around here that were participating in AMS. There was a breeding review that recommended a fully pedigree recorded flock, and the commercial growers in the great southern WA wanted sheep that performed in their environment. So performance bred sheep performing in high rainfall environments how sheep did in other environments was of no great interest to the members at the time, and so Merino Tech was set up as a public unlisted company and the commercial growers became the shareholders of the company, and the idea was to have a ram breeding group that was responsive to the commercial growers' needs and desires and following performance-bred principles and population genetic theories, and so that's what we did. The first two years of operation was funded by the share capital that we raised, because it took a while to get going. And, yeah, the rest went on from there and it was proven that population genetics and performance breeding certainly has the runs on the board and will continue to do so.
Speaker 1:Yeah for sure. So getting that flock started, it was obviously and I've done it a couple of times in career where you have to go out and get some base ewes. So what did that? Look like that was contributions from members.
Speaker 2:Well, the AMS and we continued in Renotech. There was a ewe contribution scheme. So there were ewes being contributed up the scheme and then rams filting back down through the scheme. There was the intensively recorded nucleus, then the ram multiplier flocks and then the commercial growers. So the commercial growers would contribute ewes to the ram breeders and then the ram breeders would contribute ewes to the intensively recorded nucleus flock. Then the rams would go back down. So in answer to your question, the ewes of the nucleus flock came from the multiplier flocks which were based on the commercial growers' genetics available at the time. Yeah right, but that ceased. The ewe contribution ceased after about probably five years I can't remember now probably the sort of early 1990s due to disease, trench resistance, foot rot, sheep lice, just the transmission of diseases was wanting to be minimised. And then the fully pedigree recorded nucleus flock were better off having full pedigree recording than ewes coming in with unknown genetic value. And so the ewe contribution ceased and it just became a closed nucleus flock essentially.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, so obviously it's evolved over time. What does it look like now? I mean it's a pretty's evolved over time. What does it look like now? I mean it's pretty similar structure. I guess really hasn't from that formation, with a few few changes.
Speaker 2:But yeah, the structure is still the same. There were how many sheep? There were 190 million sheep in australia when we were setting it up in the early 90s with the flock reduction scheme and one thing and another. There's significantly less sheep in australia now. I think in west australia something like six million breeding ewes left. So the sheep numbers in general have reduced dramatically, and so the client base of Renotech has reduced also.
Speaker 2:There's still around about 50,000 commercial ewes mated each year 50,000 or 60,000, so it's not an insignificant number. The total number of rams sold are between 300 and 400 a year. So it's still not an insignificant number at all, but certainly a lot less than what it was through the say, the heyday of the sheep industry, and so the changes have been made accordingly. The sheep are competing for land use, whether it be carbon farming or cropping or cattle or whatever, trees, grapevines, peanuts, there's competing land use all the way along. So the sheep enterprise has to perform and be profitable, and so being able to alter the selection index so that sheep have a positive contribution to a farming enterprise continues on, and there's more of a focus on meat now Lambing percentage, survival rate, sheep meat eating qualities, that there's genetic changes in the selection index to accommodate the competing land use and end product markets.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I guess that's what. I guess leadership is what Marana Tech has been known for ever since I moved to WA then moved away. Yeah, that's always been wanting to be at the forefront. I wonder, like not many breeding businesses have an overseeing board, and I wonder if you had any reflection on that, on how that has helped, I guess, keep things less reactive to small changes. I know when the microman has kicked in that you guys stuck to your guns and sort of kept to your breeding objective because you'd set it with a lot of rigour. I guess how much has the board been a part of helping keeping it on the straight and narrow?
Speaker 2:Well, I think the board's job has been to reflect the commercial growers' wishes, and so it has been a moderating effect, as you say. Rather than being reactive to what's happening, it's been proactive and responding to trends and changes. So that change has happened, but it's certainly not a knee-jerk response. All the time of changing the index annually and going from one thing to another, uh, things were introduced. First of all, we just started off doing fleece weight, body weight and micron, uh, and then stokeless strength came in after that, then fecal worm egg count and then the sheep, um, sheep meat eating qualities came along after that.
Speaker 2:And I think now, now with the computing technology, sheep genetics I can't remember how many traits from the selection index 20, 25 or something like that that are measured, a large number of visual traits, and so the selection index is the main means into the ends and fine-tuning. That was the method of achieving the outcome that was set, rather than kind of crystal ball gaze and predict what might be happening in the future, was to stick to what works and tweak it as we go along. And I think, yeah, the board, so the board's, had a moderating sort of overview of things. Yeah, and we have had written policies, quality policy statements and things like that that are written down, so we can reflect back on what was written down a year or two ago and see what the current mood and emotions are, whether they are in line with what the current thoughts are. So we can have that sort of that reflection, the ability to contemplate or reflect on what's happening.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure, I guess in my job we get to see breeding programs all over the place and yeah, I see Mariantek sheep. Well, I'm sitting in the middle of a on the road in New Zealand at the moment, not too far away from some mariantic blood sheep and the I guess you'd be. I'd hope that the marine, the, the board and the contributors sit back sometimes and and kind of think about the, the contribution that's been made to the industry, not just through, obviously, those ram sales to western australians, but there's a lot of pedigrees in the east and in the far east here in new Zealand that have had a contribution from Renotech, which is testament to those directions set in the early days.
Speaker 2:Yeah for sure. The genetic footprint of Renotech is quite reasonable. The volume of semen sales each year on a national basis is significant. It does form part of the income stream of Renotech, it's part of the business model. But essentially the objective of Renotech is to breed commercial rams for commercial growers to maximise their profitability and productivity. So the semen sales certainly enhances that. But the focus is on the commercial growers' profitability and ability to survive financially.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I guess if we think about that profitability, it's obviously all of the members, and with yourself and Ben and John Young, all pretty focused on the economics and so that cost of production or total product per hectare, as has been as being key, and I guess that breeding objective, as you sort of mentioned, has changed over time. Your very early days, with chatting to norm adams about I guess we probably didn't have the words or you didn't have the words back then around whole body energy, what we're talking now, but that was sort of norms kind of concept that you incorporated fat and muscle back, I think, early 2000s, which is probably before the lion's share of the industry, if not the first. Yeah, but I guess those sort of things have always evolved. And now, yeah, as you say, we're sort of with the fly strike early on that work as well. So it's an evolving objective to make sure cost of production is kept under control.
Speaker 2:The commercial growers of merino Tech in the past have tended to be innovators and early adopters, and so there's always been a close alliance over many years, even before Merino Tech was formed. The alliance of the commercial growers wanting to improve their profit, understanding how things are working and how they can improve the profitability of their own farm, were attracted to the Merino Tech model, or the Merino Tech model was formed from. That foundation, I suppose is what actually happened. You know the commercial growers have driven it all the way along, and so that model continues today with the alliance, with Murdoch University, and often the commercial grass farms are the venues for the research that is taking place. So you know the research has been done on the farms.
Speaker 2:Norm was doing research work on and the CSIRO were doing research work in Cozen up in the 1950s and 60s on time of lambing and things like that.
Speaker 2:So the research was often hands-on by the commercial growers' participation in it, the same as your research at Ian Robertson's the fat and muscle research that you did. It was just involved in that cutting-edge research all the time and that will continue, I think when I started farming there was probably 10% of my cohort that did not go farming and if you didn't go farming you were seen as a bit of a black sheep. It was an expectation that you would go farming. Where for Ben's group, I think, probably 90% have done other careers and 10% have opted to go farming. So that smaller group of people who are going into farming now are passionate about it. They're driven to survive and will make changes for a 1% or 2% gain, and so their ability to understand research, participate in research and apply those that technology to their systems is what's making them able to continue farming successfully yeah, if we and if we drill down to that a bit more.
Speaker 1:I remember moving to western australia from the western district of victoria. There was a very dramatic and maybe it's just the circle you end up mixing in. It often is but a very dramatic shift in that innovation or interest in innovation and wanting to be better, wanting to be different. Now you've had the opportunity to study psychology and all that you've learned. Do you have any underpinning reasons for that or it just is?
Speaker 2:I think it's. I do have some theories about it. Actually, an observation of mine is that there was a lot of government social experiments on settling rural areas of Australia and essentially they were after the First and Second Wars. So there were soldier settlement schemes In WA, there were group settlement schemes through the 1920s, and so there were a lot of people who were put into agriculture who had no real disposition to it and hadn't had a background in it. So it was certainly an effective way to get rural areas settled and the Department of Agriculture and things like that. Their job was to help essentially these new farmers be able to farm successfully and from that a number of people.
Speaker 2:Part of the distribution curve is that there are some that were able to have a green thumb and make it work and others fell by the wayside in some in quite short time, and so there were people who were already involved in agriculture. Plus a whole lot of other people entered agriculture and just through natural nutrition, the ones who have managed to survive and expand and cope and so on, have had something intuitive in them about farming and the ability to detect patterns and things, just observe what's happening around them and just have a gut feeling as to what to do. I think so. There's this intuitive ability of farmers to be aware of what's happening and underpin that with research. But whether my ideas have any credibility I have no idea. But certainly there's something innate in people who are farming successfully. And even in farming there's still that distribution curve of profitable groups and not so profitable farmers and natural attrition.
Speaker 2:If someone can't make it work, natural attrition just gets hold of them. And you know just need to look at the number of registered merino studs in Australia the ones who couldn't adapt and adopt. And they're reflecting their commercial growers, their commercial clients' needs. Natural attrition's taken over and that competing land use has seen that land be used for other methods of production.
Speaker 1:Yeah, good points Before we get further into psychology. But the last is what's next from Renotech? Is there any traits that the board are thinking about? I guess it's always waiting to wait and see games, see what comes up, because we don't know what's next. But is there anything on the radar that currently isn't there?
Speaker 2:Not that I'm aware of, but certainly meat is becoming a major and has been for a number of years, but it's becoming more important. The changing of the live sheep export in West Australia will influence production systems so a lot of that finishing will have to take place on farms now or farmers will have the commercial sheep. Farmers in WA will be selling sheep as store sheep to fattening people who will feedlot and finish. And once people are feedlotting on farm, the requirements the commercial growers' requirements to maintain profitability, will trickle back down as to what sheep do best in feedlot conditions.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You said methane gas earlier on, I think the 2050 things that are in legislation or not the 2050s in legislation yet, but complying to legislative requirements will influence what happens. So, yeah, the greenhouse gases and that sort of thing is you know that we're participating in research looking at methane production. Now it's not in the selection index, but that could well become something that goes in as stock numbers get reduced. We can meet some of the agriculture, can meet some of the methane reduction requirements just through reducing sheep numbers. So the profitability, the intense, making the sheep industry more intense could become part of it, which might change the selection index. Yeah, so yeah, probably things beyond the farm gate might become more influential in the selection index, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and maybe we should just cover off the like the development of selection index. Obviously henry and john young have worked together to, uh well, the original one that was in place since, was it?
Speaker 1:2005 I think yeah and uh, and that's sort of been been through a process the last couple years to tweak that to incorporate a lot of things like obviously ann robertson ran the nucleus for a number of years, for a long time for since inception, and had a lot of those visual trades, but we've now sort of managed to bring them in for the ones that are breeding ways and bring them into that index as well, so that we haven't just got kind of visual and data, they're kind of all in the same text, which brings, I think, some power to it, plus the economics that John Young obviously is the guru of.
Speaker 2:Yes, no, the computing ability of the Sheep Genetics computer to be able to quantify a lot of what we were doing visually certainly will, and the full pedigree recording will make the selection index a powerful tool and the ability to change things will I don't know if it will happen quickly, but be quite influential.
Speaker 2:So the need to fully understand the implications as to what's happening when we make one change in one area, what's happening in, what's the consequence in another area, and just being able to measure these things will enable us to fine-tune the selection index as we go along. But the previous one that had I don't know how many measured traits, probably 10. I think it was 10, yeah, 10, something like that did work very well. But adding these visual traits and putting them into the selection index will save around ewe productivity. And you know now when they're culling the ewes, we can have the sheep, the ewes' lifetime productivity coming up and we've got sheep that are weaning their total mature body weight each year. So a ewe of 60 kilograms is weaning 60 kilograms of lamb each year, or plus 60 kilos. So being able to identify those sheep compared to the ones that just has between every second year or something like that. So there's just little things like that with the computing technology, and electronic ear tags are making a big difference to lifetime production.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. And yeah, big opportunities to take what has been a great breeding program to go even greater. The last question is one we ask in every podcast these days which gets people thinking to go even, even, even greater. The last question is one we ask in every podcast these days which is gets people thinking? And that is what is the last thing you change your mind about um, there's, there's several things to do with that.
Speaker 2:Um, I suppose one one is the selection index and reno tech index. We, we do review and change that from time to time. Uh, I'm restoring a british motorbike at present, so so I've changed my mind about how we're going to get around the technology and what to do and how to put it back together. But probably, having studied psychology now, if I knew now, if I knew when I was 20 what I know now, I think my life might have been done a bit differently. The importance of family is terribly important.
Speaker 2:Often farms see the farm as the central focus and the goose that laid the golden egg, which means that family, work-life balance and family can be compromised. So I think and I certainly see it in the work I do now as a psychologist, the importance of participation in the upbringing of children, the interaction of the whole family dynamics in relation to a farming production system, is just trying to balance things out, to make it work. Agriculture has been good to our family, the Webb family, over a large number of generations and will continue to do so. The social media, pressure of social media and the use of it, certainly influencing the way we operate and family dynamics. But I think at the end of the day, our family is what we have and we have to treasure and cultivate that importance of the family unit. And sometimes we might feel that we're compromising the farm's productivity, but in the long term I'm sure that it's the reverse it does. So having a strong family unit and being able to have time off and have everything working does improve the farm profitability and productivity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, really important words, and that's why we ask the question, because we always get good answers like that one. And yeah, very well said. I think, having tried to follow you around for a few days when I've had the pleasure of staying with it, um, you always, I don't think I've ever seen you walk. It's either running or running or stop. But the um, yeah, obviously, um, it would have been a massive change to take that step from what is a very busy, active farmer to go well I'm now going to, but to, yeah, to see you and Ben interact now. Like it's a great legacy and it's awesome to see decisions made earlier, rather than sort of let bad things happen and then get forced decisions.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Forced to make changes? Yeah, yeah, and often that can be the case in things bad to make changes? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, and often that can be the case in bad. Things can happen which is just unpleasant and unfortunate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, all right, bill, we'll leave it there and let you get on with. Well, you started early for the day. You'll get a favourite done today, yeah, but yeah, really appreciate your time. And we should mention the Marino Tech Open Day and Sale. When's that this year?
Speaker 2:The Open Day and Ram Sale are on Friday, the 4th of October, just near Cochinup.
Speaker 1:Excellent. All right, Bill, we'll let you get on with your day and, yeah, thanks very much for your time.
Speaker 2:Thank you, mark. Thanks for all your help, and it's greatly appreciated.
Speaker 1:Thanks, mate.
