About Sheep Central

Sheep Central

Overview

Sheep Central is a free online news and market intelligence service dedicated to the Australian sheep, lamb and wool industries. Published at sheepcentral.com, it was established in 2014 as a sister publication to Beef Central, applying the same model — a free, advertising-supported, single-commodity daily news service written by specialist journalists — to the sheepmeat and wool supply chain. At its launch the publishers described it as the first and only online daily news service devoted solely to Australia's wool, lamb and sheepmeat industries. Sheep Central is independently owned and managed by publishers Jon Condon and James Nason, and is edited by Terry Sim, one of Australia's most experienced sheep and wool journalists, who is based at Macarthur in south-west Victoria. Content is updated every day, with a free regular email newsletter delivering headline summaries to registered readers.

History

Sheep Central was launched in 2014, three years after Beef Central's debut in 2011, after publishers Jon Condon and James Nason recruited experienced sheep industry journalist Terry Sim to their full-time editorial team to build a similar national daily service for the wool and sheepmeat industries. Announcing the launch, the publishers said the reasons mirrored those behind Beef Central: a global shift from print to online news, and a gap in Australian rural media, where existing services were organised by state or region and attempted to cover a broad suite of commodities, rather than specialising in a single commodity in depth.

Terry Sim brought a lifelong engagement with the sheep industry to the editor's chair. He grew up on his family's sheep and lamb property near Macarthur, Victoria, and has run his own flock since childhood. He started work as a copy boy on News Ltd's Melbourne Truth newspaper, worked as a journalist at the Warrnambool Standard, spent time jackarooing in the Northern Territory and mustering on stations around Broken Hill, then spent seven years from 1985 with the Australian Cashmere Marketing Corporation as a classer and development officer, four years as the WA Cashmere Pool manager, and four years in the United States managing the Cashmere America grower cooperative. Returning to agricultural journalism in 1996, he spent 13 years as editor of the Warrnambool Standard's rural supplement "On The Land", three years with Victoria's Stock & Land newspaper — including a year as Rural Press Group sheep and wool writer — and time as a senior livestock reporter with the Weekly Times at Hamilton before joining Sheep Central. He has also competed in yard dog trials and sold kelpies through the Casterton Working Dog Auction, and his byline has appeared across the Central network's titles for more than a decade. At the site's launch, the publishers noted he had worked as a specialist sheep and wool writer in print media for the previous 15 years, and that he remained an active sheep producer at Macarthur. From Sheep Central, Sim has reported on the industry's defining issues, including an ongoing scrutiny of Australian Wool Innovation's levy-funded WoolQ platform — reporting cited in the Australian Senate estimates process and republished by Senator Bridget McKenzie's office.

Programming and Content

Sheep Central covers every link in the sheepmeat and wool production chain, from breeding paddock to end user. Its sections include News, Lamb Production, Markets, Weather, Recruitment and Carbon, with coverage spanning local, national and international industry news, sheep and wool market and price trends, supply and demand updates, weather and seasonal outlooks — including Bureau of Meteorology weekly rainfall updates — research and development reporting, enterprise profiles and agribusiness news. The site's reporting mixes hard news (government policy, levy-body accountability, animal health, workforce and visa issues) with market wraps and analysis from across Australia, and it actively solicits reader debate, with Sim regularly inviting wool growers and producers to publish their arguments on contested questions such as levy settings. It also carries recruitment advertising for the meat and livestock industries and maintains a Carbon section tracking emissions and sustainability developments affecting sheep producers. Through 2026 its dominant running story was the federal government's phase-out of live sheep exports by sea and the transition assistance for Western Australian producers and carriers, covered in detail alongside lamb production statistics from Meat & Livestock Australia, ABARES forecasts and state industry developments. Contributing writers include Liz Wells, who writes the Feedgrain Focus market column shared across the Central titles, and journalist Emma Alsop. Content is published daily; articles dated throughout October 2026 — on research honours, processor earnings, visa policy, lamb slaughter statistics and gene bank funding — confirm the service remains in active daily operation.

Audience and Reach

Sheep Central serves the Australian sheep and wool industries nationally: commercial lamb and wool producers, stud breeders, wool brokers and buyers, processors and exporters, livestock agents, shearers and contractors, researchers, and the levy bodies, government agencies and representative organisations — such as Sheep Producers Australia, WoolProducers Australia, Livestock SA and state farmer federations — whose decisions its reporting scrutinises. Its coverage of the live export phase-out, WoolPoll levy votes and Australian Wool Innovation governance gives it an audience among industry policymakers and advocates as well as working producers. Because the service is free, web-based and supported by a headline email newsletter, it reaches readers across all sheep-producing states, from the Western Australian wheat-sheep zone to the high-rainfall districts of Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia and Tasmania, as well as international readers following the Australian wool and lamb trade.

Digital Presence

Sheep Central is a digital-only publication operating at sheepcentral.com, with a searchable archive of daily reporting extending back to its 2014 launch, organised by section and author. Readers can register on the site for a free regular email newsletter summarising the latest headlines. The site cross-publishes and shares content with its sister titles Beef Central and Grain Central — market columns such as Feedgrain Focus appear across the stable — and forms part of the wider Ag Central network, which also operates the standalone AgTech Central site and directory. Sheep Central stories are regularly cited by other rural media and, in the case of its WoolQ investigations, by parliamentarians, extending its digital reach beyond its own subscriber base.

Ownership and Organisation

Sheep Central is independently owned and managed by its publishers, Jon Condon and James Nason, the founders of Beef Central, who established the parent business in Brisbane, Queensland in 2011. Day-to-day editing is in the hands of editor Terry Sim, based at Macarthur, Victoria, supported by contributing journalists including Liz Wells and Emma Alsop and a national network of commentators and analysts drawn from the wider Central publishing stable. Advertising is handled by Matt Hatchard and Nikki Nason, who manage advertising across the network's titles. Like its sister publications, Sheep Central is funded by advertising revenue and is free for readers, a model the publishers chose deliberately so that, in their words, important industry information is available to everyone in the industry rather than held behind a paywall.

Contact and Availability

Sheep Central is available free of charge at www.sheepcentral.com, updated daily, with a free email newsletter available by registering on the site. Advertising enquiries published by the site are directed to Matt Hatchard (0437 870 127, matt@sheepcentral.com) and Nikki Nason (0448 630 047). The publication is published by Jon Condon and James Nason, with editorial operations led by editor Terry Sim at Macarthur, Victoria. In keeping with this directory's policy, the structured business email field for this listing is left empty.