New research facility to shape lamb feedlots

The sheep containment facility is being developed by Charles Sturt's Red Meat Innovation Centre and AgriPark, adding to the existing Feedlot of the Future for cattle

AgriPark executive director Nick Pagett said the new facility was a very important development and should be up and running within three months.

"We've got the equipment organised, we've got the site located, we're now just going through installation programs and we'll populate from our drop of spring lambs at weaning stage," he said.

"We're trying to not do it as an controlled environment, small scale lamb feeding which is your classical research sheep facility, this is actually quite large scale so up to 2000 head.

"This is a scale-up type facility where we look at what we have learned from lab and small trials and see if when we try to scale it towards a semi-commercial sized operation, do we see the same correlation in results?"

The first projects to be run through the facility will include a nutrition trial aimed at speeding up digestion and improving productivity, work on reducing carbon emissions and testing emerging technology around renewable energy, including how to convert waste to energy.

Mr Pagett said around $2.5 million had been invested into the fully automated facility, which had been heavily supported by industry stakeholders.

"Contained sheep feeding is probably an under-researched portfolio... this is also an opportunity for us to think about alternate pathways for live export," he said.

"This facilty gives us the opportunity to think about renewables, it gives us the opportunity to think about digital technologies and therefore we have funding to support the development of those initiatives in partnership with industry.

"The other really big outcome for this is this is going to be a great education facility for us for our undergraduate and post-graduate to either do their own research activities or actually see in place a commercial feeding operation that's also doing large-scale research and trials."

Charles Sturt is spending a further $50 million on other agricultural projects including work at their Global Digital Farm, projects in the Cool Soils Initiative, various projects in the Renewables in Agriculture program, including bringing the first hydrogen tractor to Australia, and the development of a circularity Centre of Excellence.

Charles Sturt Vice-Chancellor Renée Leon said the investments would help to address challenges and unlock opportunities in the agriculture sector, helping to push the industry towards its goal of exceeding $100 billion in farm gate output by 2030.

"These investments mark a significant step towards realising the vision of a more sustainable, innovative and resilient Australian agriculture sector," Professor Leon said.

"Charles Sturt is at the forefront of innovation across the board, but our agricultural research is truly leading the way on a global scale."