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24 February 2025
Credentials and Digital Innovation
Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry
Agriculture House
70 Northbourne Avenue
Canberra ACT 2601
Via email: credentials.innovation@aff.gov.au
RE: Assuring agricultural sustainability claims: discussion paper
Thank you for the opportunity to provide comment on the Assuring agricultural sustainability claims: discussion paper. Sheep Producers Australia (SPA) is the national peak body representing Australia's
20,000 sheepmeat producers. We recognise that increasingly our producers are being asked to report on sustainability issues associated with their farming systems.
As an industry we concur with discussion paper’s finding that:
….. sustainability, and the ability to demonstrate that a product has been produced
sustainably, is increasingly becoming a key factor in market access negotiations at the
government to government, industry to government and business to business levels.
Sheep and wool producers rely heavily on the Australian Sheep Sustainability Framework (ASSF) to identify criteria and report data on material sustainability issues for our industry. For individual producers to be able to respond to the noted supply chain requirements below, we need better, accessible systems for data collection and verification that can be incorporated into current farming system reporting.
Supply chain participants indicated that sustainability frameworks provided a positive
narrative for the industry that is helpful to them, but they required more specific evidence at
a supplier level than frameworks provide.
In this regard we commend the objectives of this current governmental review of sustainability claims to:
1. Understand essential sustainability credentials
2. Identify approaches to support data-driven claims
3. Support verification for market access purpose.
A key challenge for the sheep industry is having systems in place that enable efficient and economical demonstration of sustainability claims to meet market access requirements at both the farm and supply chain level. The absence of a robust and accessible auditable verification system puts at risk the industry’s ability to validate, comply and accurately report against international standards on the priority attributes identified in the consultation report:
GHG emissions, animal welfare, water use, biodiversity and deforestation indicates strong
alignment between stakeholders on key environmental and ethical concerns, suggesting
these areas may be central to sustainability reporting and claims.
Sheep Producers Australia is committed to accountability on sustainability issues and through MLA is undertaking a current scan of potential ESG issues for our industry. While the above attributes are generally shared by agricultural commodities, our current research may reveal additional attributes that need to be tracked in the future.
Please contact Corinne Dooley, PolicyDirector@sheepproducers.com.au if you require further input.
Yours sincerely,
Bonnie Skinner
CEO
Sheep Producers Australia