WoolWorks has placed a $50 million bet on the future of wool, not just in Hawke’s Bay, but New Zealand as well. Yet the wool industry is not in great shape right now. Arguably, it hasn’t been since the 1950s. From 70 million in the 1980s, sheep numbers are now about 24 million.
So what does the future hold?
In researching and talking to people about wool in recent weeks, the boom times of the Korean War come up regularly. People accept those times won’t come again, but they have more trouble defining why.
For some, it’s the supply chain that takes wool from the farmgate through to consumers that’s broken. Others believe wool is not being marketed well enough. Apparently there are consumers in the Northern Hemisphere who can save the New Zealand wool industry. Only people have trouble identifying exactly who those potential consumers are and how to sell wool to them.
By ‘wool’ it’s important to note we’re talking about strong wool. It’s sometimes referred to as coarse wool as well. It’s your common variety wool, which New Zealand has been renowned for, rather than your finer merino clip. That’s a whole other ball of yarn in itself.
Who’s clipping the wool coupon?
Strong wool prices went up in the last few weeks, to $3.37 a kilo.That’s up from $2.58 in June 2022 and $2.76 in June 2023.
“But it costs around $6 to shear a ewe, so you don’t even cover your costs,’’ says Anthea Yule, Hawke’s Bay provincial chair of Federated Farmers meat and wool industry group.
She’s been farming in this region since 1987 and says farmers are largely shearing for animal health reasons, given there’s no money to be made from the clip.
However, at the other end of the supply chain, wool has increasingly become a luxury item.
“If you want to buy your child a singlet, you’ve got a choice between a pack of four made of synthetic and plastic for $20 or you can buy one woollen one for $30. That’s the reality on the ground,’’ Yule says.
Kara Biggs accepts that. She’s general manager of the Campaign for Wool, that’s emerged in the vacuum created by the disestablishment of the old New Zealand Wool Board.
The Campaign for Wool is about education, advocacy and marketing on behalf of wool growers. “We need to make sure we’re talking to the right people,’’ Biggs says.
“Within New Zealand wool, we are not talking to the people who go and spend their money at Kmart. We’re just not. I get it that some people need to shop at Kmart. We all do from time to time, but wool actually isn’t for everybody and we need to be really clear about that.’’
So who is the industry aiming to reach and what are the obstacles?
Different views of the challenge
WoolWorks, which operates a scouring business from premises in Awatoto, Clive, Timaru and Australia, seems to have some idea of its audience and market.
“We’ve spent the last 20 years right-sizing and getting the early stage wool processing in New Zealand into a restricted model that’s actually globally competitive so, without what we do, there would be no wool industry in New Zealand,’’ says Nigel Hales, WoolWorks president.
“Growers obviously made a decision a few years back to dissolve the Wool Board, but there’s been no grower input of any substantial nature since then and we could all have an opinion on that. But while some parts of the sector were going backwards, we read the tea leaves quite correctly and have right-sized the industry now to less sheep numbers so we can compete internationally.
“What that means for the farmers is that if they want to set up doing other things and adding value to their wool clip, then they’ve got the most perfect opportunity to do so.’’
First published by BayBuzz. Click here to read the full article.