Serious investment and infrastructure would be needed to bolster Australia's meatworks if a live export ban was to be introduced, the industry has claimed, while about 500 people gathered in Adelaide to protest against the trade.

Representatives of the RSPCA, Animals Australia, and Adelaide Against Live Export have called for live sheep shipments to be banned immediately during the Middle East's scorching summer months.

The protest happened as controversial livestock carrier, Emmanuel Exports, was due to dock and load one of its ships — Al Shuwaikh — at Port Adelaide on Sunday night.

RSPCA SA animal welfare advocate Rebekah Eyers said Australian farmers should be financially supported to transition out of live exports and into the chilled-meat trade.

"The cruelty and the suffering of these animals on the sheep shipments simply cannot be avoided," she said.

"It must stop and we must see the Government take some definitive action … there is never an economic argument for animal cruelty."

Ban on live exports could hurt rural communities, industry says

About 100 kilometres away from Adelaide's Parliament House, in the Barossa Valley, sheep producer and Livestock SA president Joe Keynes agreed what happened on board the Awassi Express in August last year should never happen again.

But he said a live export ban, which protesters are calling for, would harm some regional and rural communities, particularly in South Australia and Western Australia.

Joe Keynes says a ban on live exports would harm some regional and rural communities. ( ABC News: Claire Campbell )

"Let's wait for the independent review — that will give out the measures that actually will ensure that we can continue this trade having the best animal welfare outcomes and supporting Australian farmers," he said.

"We need to ensure that we supply our markets — our markets at the moment are asking for live animals … but if the market changes, we will transition.

"Having a diversity of markets allows us to have some different options to ensure that we don't flood one market or the other and ensure we can get good and stable returns for all producers."

A fire at one of South Australia's biggest abattoirs, Thomas Foods International, earlier this year pushed meatworks waiting times up to five weeks in South Australia.

A wait that long could cost producers thousands of dollars if the live export trade — or alternative markets — did not exist.

"I think the [meatworks] industry would struggle to process all of those animals that are available [if live exports were banned]," Mr Keynes said.

With Government support, industry could meet demand, AMIC says

The Australian Meat Industry Council (AMIC) said it also did not support a ban on live exports.

Lachie Hart believes Australia's meatworks and abattoirs could meet an increase in demand if live exports were phased out. ( ABC News: Claire Campbell )

But AMIC chairman Lachie Hart said with immediate investment in the workforce and facilities, Australia's meatworks and abattoirs could meet an increase in demand if live exports were phased out.

"It has to be a coordinated approach, having a knee-jerk reaction to just completely ban that particular trade isn't going to help anyone, it's certainly not going to help processors in the short term," he said.

"We actually see [live export] as a critical trade to the industry, it creates further competition to the industry.

"Any opportunity where we have competing environment for their livestock is good for the producer and good for the Australian economy.

"If the Government is prepared to support the manufacturing industry in Australia, support us in training our labour, to get labour into our plants, we certainly have the capacity and the ability to handle the live export trade volumes."

Animal rights activists want live exports to be banned. ( Supplied: Channel Nine )

AMIC said international demand for chilled, airfreighted meat was growing, with only about 5 per cent of Australian livestock live exported, and about 20 per cent of its mutton.

It said 250,000 carcasses were airfreighted to the Middle East in 2006 but that number had jumped to 2.6 million by 2016.

"We have over 100 countries around the world that are quite happy to accept our product ... in [chilled or frozen] form," Mr Hart said.

"We're able to meet all the slaughter requirements, our religious requirements, our labelling requirements to ensure that we get product that's fit for purpose and meeting the consumers' demands."