Spotlight: boom and bust in agricultural science

Dr Stuart Barber is a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Veterinary Science in the University of Melbourne. He teaches first and second year students, is active in his family’s Poll-Dorset stud farm, and writes monthly for the Herald and Weekly Times newspaper.

He also runs a research program focused on sheep mastitis and talks to Science Hub this month about his research, and more broadly about the importance of agriculture to Australia’s economy.

No one likes to talk about being sick, especially not the type of sick where causes and treatments are still a mystery. But in science, it’s the diseases for which management is still difficult that capture our attention and focus our problem-solving abilities.

In veterinary science as in human medicine, there are many unsolved mysteries in disease, but thanks to Dr Stuart Barber and his team, the mysteries of sheep mastitis are becoming less puzzling.

Mastitis is a disease affecting the mammary tissue of any animal nursing its young: sheep, goats, cows, or even humans. It is characterised by infection of the mammary glands by one or more species of bacteria that replicate in milk, and which cause inflammation and tissue damage so severe that milk production may cease.

In Victoria, up to 5% of ewes from the terminal sire sheep breeds die each year from mastitis, costing individual farmers thousands of dollars each. As meat sheep, particularly prime-lamb breeds, take prominence in the income of sheep producers who have switched from wool production, the costs of sheep mastitis to Victorian agriculture will only increase.

“Four years back, there was a particularly bad season where a number of producers lost a large number of sheep from mastitis,” says Dr Barber.

“It’s been a problem forever, but when we looked into the main cause of clinical mastitis – the mastitis a farmer can see happening – we identified one particular bacteria more common than others. That bacterium was Mannheimia haemolytica. It’s always been a problem, but less commonly than Staphylococcus aureus.”

Prior to Dr Barber’s investigation, few large-scale, scientifically-designed studies into the causes of sheep mastitis had been performed in Australia.

“There wasn’t much research around for veterinarians to base their treatment regimes on, so identifying the bacteria for a start, and then the best antibiotic to treat it with has given farmers and veterinarians better knowledge to tackle the problem with.”

Dr Barber’s team is still looking at the causes of sub-clinical mastitis, which is more difficult for the farmer to detect, but which still has a large influence on the sheep’s productivity and the health of their lambs.

“We’re also looking for genetic answers to that. Can we genetically select for sheep that have fewer problems with mastitis and avoid either having to treat those animals with antibiotics or selling the sheep that don’t perform well?

“Looking at the major causes of mastitis across industry is ongoing work. We’ve now got producers right around Australia that we’re working with, to look at all sorts of things, but particularly the genetics, which will be a longer-term solution to reducing those problems with mastitis.”

One of the major aims of Dr Barber’s research is to improve animal welfare on farms, but also the ability of farmers to treat difficult diseases, allowing them to improve their production systems overall. It is work that requires Dr Barber’s team to collaborate closely with the sheep industry to focus their research and improve outcomes on farm.

“A lot of the research has been driven by interaction with producers and talking to them about the things that cause them problems. Trying to improve on those, in conjunction with industry groups is a really good thing to do, it’s very rewarding.”

It is rewarding work, but also very significant in the big picture of Australia’s research program.

“Agriculture has a really important role in the Australian income,” says Dr Barber. “One of my concerns is that decreasing funding diminishes our ability to improve [agricultural practice], particularly in my area of animal welfare and animal production.”

As in any industry, major advances in productivity are often made when innovative research is conducted on the industry’s key problems.

“[Continual improvement] is important to maintain, and research has been a big driver for improving animal welfare and production in the past fifty years,” says Dr Barber.

Of broader importance, however, is maintaining research standards in agricultural science, and particularly research funding for the big questions facing Australia’s producers. Making the most of our investment in the scientists trained to probe these big questions is a challenge in straitened times for the agricultural industry.

“There certainly has been a reduction in funding over the past few years. The major research funding in agriculture comes from the industry-based groups. When things are difficult, as they have been for the past two or three years, the income available [for research] is reduced.

“If you do have that boom-and-bust cycle of agricultural prosperity and research funding, people develop certain expertise, and when those roles disappear [during times of financial hardship], those people are forced to move into different areas. It’s a matter of trying to keep those career paths open for scientists, to allow them to keep their roles in those sectors.

“If the areas [scientists they are forced to move into] are more reliable, in terms of income for example, people won’t come back. That’s certainly a concern for industry. Once you lose that expertise, you then need to retrain people, which takes time and costs more money.

“It would be good if we could at least maintain the current level of funding, if not improve on that, and carry on research for the future.”

Dr Barber is employed by the Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Melbourne and his research until recently was funded by Australian Wool Innovation and the Meat and Livestock Association.

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