The organisation's chairman, Mike Petersen, said in an interview that in 2007 it invested $15.3 million in research out of $31.5 million collected in levies.
"We are certainly committed to funding research and there are certainly areas of research we do need to be addressing."
But sheep reproduction was not a priority and Meat and Wool had made a decision to no longer fund it.
He believed the Foundation for Research Science and Technology was too rigid in allocating funds to the sector given its current lack of profitability, but that situation would change.
Mr Petersen said the foundation had virtually withdrawn from funding wool research, leaving it to AgResearch and Meat and Wool to pick up.
"Sometimes it's a bit frustrating."
The de-cision to back Australian beef genetics funding was made because Meat and Wool felt it could get greater leverage rather than doing the work itself.
Ovita shareholder Meat and Wool and AgResearch has been in discussions with the foundation for most of this year over the sale of Catapult Genetics to Pfizer Animal Health.
Mr Petersen said the foundation had considered withdrawing its funding to Ovita for genetics research fearing the technology could follow Catapult and be sold overseas.
Catapult was a commercial company spun out of Ovita in July 2006 and has been at the forefront of finding genetic markers in sheep, commercialising genes that identify muscling, parasite susceptibility, fertility and an eye disorder.