Australia-Training young shearers.

AUSTRALIA-TRAINING YOUNG SHEARERS.

The South Australian Farmers’ Federation has slammed Australian Wool Innovation’s decision to a slash in funding for shearer and shedhand training.

The SAFF Livestock Industry Committee’s wool representative, Geoff Power, says the move "will result in severe damage to the South Australian wool industry".

"AWI’s shearer and shedhand training evaluation program has been highly successful in advancing the South Australian wool industries workforce, the decision to slash funding to this program is unacceptable," Mr Power said.

"This decision by the AWI is very short sighted; it takes years to create a skilled and experienced workforce.

"Cutting funding to this program will have long reaching affects on the quality of employees available in the future to farmers in the Wool Industry."

Mr Power said the funding cuts could also jeopardise the integrity of the independent evaluation system for shearer and shedhand training.

"It seems that AWI are intending to rely on ’word of mouth’ from growers to determine whether training is up to standard," he said.

"I understand that the current financial climate requires AWI to cut costs, but they are doing it in the wrong area. Cutting costs in training evaluation will cause long term damage to the industry."