Representatives from Beef + Lamb New Zealand (B+LNZ) recently joined over 1,450 attendees at this year’s LambEx Conference in Adelaide, Australia. The conference, held from 7-10 July, brought together leading experts from the global sheep, lamb, and wool industries to share insights on the latest innovations, research, and emerging industry trends.
Joining the team were six B+LNZ Farmer Councillors and two B+LNZ Kāhui members (Māori Agribusiness advisory group).
This year’s theme, Telling Our Stories, focused on the people, ideas, and decisions that drive sheep farming businesses on the ground. Through a range of producer-led panels across the four-day event, farmers discussed topics ranging from the characteristics of high-performing farms to firsthand accounts of farm system changes and the lessons learned along the way.
B+LNZ Farmer Councillor Chair Dan Billing, who attended the previous LambEx event in 2024, noted how the conversations had shifted over the two years.
“A key difference was the theme of the conversations. Two years ago, it was ‘here are some issues facing us all and here’s what we are planning to do’. Now it’s ‘here’s some of the issues facing us all, and here’s what we've done about it’.
“The overall message that I took away from the event was that to find solutions to problems, they haven't left it up to others to fix. They have come together from producer, processor and industry bodies to find solutions.”
Attendees also heard from industry experts on key trends shaping the future of the sector, including the rollout of electronic identification (eID) systems and the growing role of artificial intelligence in improving farm management, operational efficiency, and business decision-making.
A series of tours on the final day rounded out the event, giving attendees the opportunity to explore some of the industry's latest innovations and research.
Highlights included visits to the Adelaide University Innovation Hub and the SARDI Turretfield Research Centre, where emerging technologies and management practices aimed at boosting productivity, improving lamb survival rates, reducing emissions, and supporting profitable sheep enterprises were on display.
A key takeaway noticed by the B+LNZ team was a strong focus on genetics. Julian Ashby, B+LNZ’s GM of Insights and Strategic Planning, noted how Australian farmers are increasingly talking about genetics, farm performance, meat quality and market value as parts of the same system.
“Farmers presenting at the conference didn’t just introduce their properties by describing hectares, rainfall and stock numbers. Genetics was often part of the basic description of how their farm system worked: where they sourced rams, the traits they were selecting for, and the production challenges they were trying to address.”
Another theme was the improving feedback loop between the farm and the processor.
Australian producers increasingly can see how their animals have performed beyond the farm gate, including measures associated with eating quality. Intramuscular fat was discussed alongside growth and carcass performance, rather than as a separate conversation, allowing genetics, management and market feedback to start reinforcing one another. For Julian, this presents something to consider.
“New Zealand already has many of the required pieces. We have high-quality genetics, deep scientific capability, farm business information, processor data, experienced advisers and trusted farmer networks. Our opportunity is to join those pieces together more effectively.
“For B+LNZ, that means ensuring genetics, science, insights and extension work as a flywheel: identify the farmer problem, develop and test the response, make the evidence understandable, help farmers apply it, and feed the results back into the next round of research and delivery.”
Back in New Zealand, and inspired in part by LambEx, B+LNZ hosts a similar event with Out the Gate – providing farmers the opportunity to come together to share ideas, challenge thinking and focus on what’s next for the sector. This year’s event brought together around 700 farmers and rural professionals in Christchurch, making it B+LNZ's largest event to date.