The wool industry has been crunching numbers around the impact livestock exports have on wool growers' profitability.
Australian Wool Innovation (AWI) funded the study which found the live export trade heavily underpins saleyard prices in Western Australia.
The report states that without live exports, wool production in WA would fall by 12 per cent and the Gross Value Production (GVP) wool growers would fall by more than $302 million.
Vice-president of the Pastoralists’ and Graziers Association, Digby Stretch, says the findings come as no surprise to farmers.
"We've been beating the drum for years and years about the importance of live export to Australia and to the wool industry and the auxiliary businesses that hang off sheep," he said.
The report also demonstrates the importance of the live export trade to WA producers, compared with the eastern states.
It estimates that if the trade were to stop overnight, similar to what happened when cattle exports were suspended to Indonesia in 2011, the WA saleyard price would fall around $36 per head for sheep, but just $6 a head in the east states.
"The bulk of the eastern states market is domestic and container-type trade.
"When things did go pear-shaped for us in 2011 the types of returns we were getting for sheep and cattle are absolutely parallel to what we're seeing in this report," he said.
The report can be found on the Australian Wool Innovation website.
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