Furious farmers say they have been “hit” by the Albanian government’s live export ban and warn it could hit our food supply as farmers are forced off their land.
Although the full ban will not come into effect until May 2028, farmers say it is already having a devastating economic effect on Western Australia’s regional economy and the communities where the industry is largely based.
Many farmers have abandoned their herds entirely as they prepare for the ban to come into effect.
“In terms of the flooding of sheep into the local market, it has had a huge effect,” sheep farmer Matt Kippen told Daily Mail Australia.
“Everyone thought it was going to start in four years, when the ban goes into effect, but it’s been going on for at least the last two years.”
Kippen, 29, who farms in the Denbarker region of Washington, about four and a half hours from Perth, said he was forced to shoot about 350 lambs because the glut made it impossible to unload them and the drought forced him to buy I think.
“It’s been uneconomical to even keep breeding stock this year,” he said.
“If there had been a market last summer, I definitely would have gotten rid of the vast majority of my sheep, if not all.”
Despite the glut of sheep, Kippen said consumers did not appear to benefit.
Western Australian sheep and crop farmer Jess Grove said the ban on exporting live animals had left rural communities feeling “disgusted”
Western Australian sheep farmer Matt Kippen (pictured) said the ban on live exports had forced him to hunt sheep.
“The money goes somewhere, not into the farmer’s pocket,” he said.
“It seems that things are lost between the farmer and the supermarket, they still charge a lot for lamb.”
“Even when we take animals to market, we probably get half the price, if not a quarter, of the price we got three years ago.”
Kippen said the ban threatened the future of family farms and he had even considered selling them.
“Obviously for the younger generation to take over the farms, it’s going to be a lot harder to turn it into a profitable, enjoyable business and a nice lifestyle without livestock on the farms,” he said.
‘Companies will be the only ones able to afford the land on such a large scale, so it will have disastrous effects.
“This will lead to far fewer farmers, which will ultimately lead to the death of rural towns.”
He also said it could affect Australians’ diet.
“We want to get the best quality food for the population, not just for ourselves,” he said.
‘The vast majority eat meat and enjoy eating it. It will be more expensive to make it viable for the farmer.
“There’s going to be a huge reduction in a source of protein that people in cities consume.”
Jess Grove, 29, who runs a mixed sheep and crop farm with her husband Alex, 30, in Western Australia’s northern midwest farming region, said the ban had been a huge financial blow.
Grove said the animal activists she saw online seemed to hate farmers, but she was just a mother with two children (pictured).
‘We have considered killing sheep. “It’s a great complex,” he said.
“As sheep farmers we care about the livestock and don’t want to see waste, so we’re not there yet.”
The Dorper breed of sheep on the Groves’ farm is raised solely for live export, but when the Albanian government began to herald a ban on live exports, the market for them collapsed.
‘Before the instability we sold between three and four thousand a year. We haven’t sold any in the last 18 months,” said Mrs Grove.
Animal activists have long claimed that the export of live sheep to be slaughtered according to religious rituals in countries such as Jordan and Kuwait is cruel.
But Keep the Sheep campaign co-ordinator Paul Brown said the live export ban was a “dirty move to prop up (Labour’s) preferential deals with minor political parties” and had nothing to do with animal welfare.
“WA’s live sheep export industry and farmers are nothing more than innocent bystanders in a political drive-by shooting, where the Prime Minister’s target was the east coast seats he needs to stay in top office,” Mr. Brown said.
Keep the Sheep campaign coordinator Paul Brown accused Labor of banning the export of live animals to make preferential deals with animal activist candidates.
‘They call them floating feedlots for a reason. They gain weight. An animal in danger does not gain weight as any producer claims.
‘There are concerns about the final outcome when they get there, but it will be governed by the Australian government.
“I think Australia’s export of live animals has improved animal welfare.”
‘Currently, our industry meets and exceeds all standards and benchmarks required by the Department.
In June, the government held a parliamentary inquiry in the Lower House into the proposed ban, but only gave farmers and other industry players a week to submit their proposals.
‘I know a lot of producers who sent submissions that never made it to the website, including ours. They weren’t even read. “It didn’t seem like it was based on any science or evidence.”
Grove believed that some in the city had a very tainted view of agriculture.
“Seeing the activists and their disdain and hatred towards farmers is very disheartening,” he said.
‘I’m just a mother with two children and I love sheep. I can see it fitting well into sustainable agriculture.
‘They believe that we are here to do harm, to damage everything.
“That has to change somehow, but I don’t know how.”
The Albanian government has been contacted for comment.