The Australian Wool Production Forecasting Committee has left its 2011-2012 forecast unchanged, despite reports from around Australia that signal evidence of grower intent to re-invest in sheep and wool.

Committee chairman Russell Pattinson said the most recent Meat and Livestock Australia/Australian Wool Innovation grower survey in June 2011 showed that more than 90 per cent of growers intended to maintain or increase sheep numbers in 2011-2012, while the latest sheep slaughter levels were down 26 per cent and live export numbers had fallen 24 per cent.

Mr Pattinson said while wool testing volumes and sale offerings to date were higher than this time last year, the committee did not believe this indicated that annual wool production would be higher than was predicted in August.

“Rather the differences were largely due to changes in rainfall and shearing patterns between the last two seasons.”

Mr Pattinson said wool offerings had been low early in the 2010-2011 season due to wet weather in many regions, while this season shearing occurred earlier and had been uninterrupted over winter and spring.

The committee predicted that in 2011-2012, 355 million greasy kilograms of wool would come from 77.3 million sheep with an average cut per head of 4.6 kilograms.