‘Restructure’ Will Cost Growers Money and Lose More End-Users

Wool prices are lousy, but restructuring the industry in New Zealand won’t increase prices and will almost certainly end up costing growers more money.

Getting shoppers to buy wool is the only thing that will increase demand and give farmers a better wool cheque. The wool industry is not broken and it doesn’t need to be mended with a “structural” fix.

Wool exporters have sponsored woolhandler competitions for many years and recently helped Sheree Alabaster (right) compete in the International Golden Shears in Norway, where she was crowned world champion.

Wool exporters have seen markets shrinking as many traditional wool users around the world have gone out of business or switched to processing synthetics.  Consumer demand is continually falling as fewer and fewer young shoppers know anything about wool or what a prestige product it is.

Wool Partners International is not the way to go. It is based on the belief of a few that the wool industry needs restructuring. That simply is not true.

The United Wool Marketers Group agrees that farmers need to get better money for their wool - and so does the rest of the industry that takes it through to consumers.

Our major point of difference is that we want to work together – from inside the farm gate through to the customer in the retail store.

This concept has been opposed by Meat & Wool NZ and we are now hearing the same “go it alone” approach from Wool Partners International.

New Zealand needs to work with the rest of the world to re-establish wool as a premium fibre. That’s what the United Wool Marketers Group stands for – but it seems Wool Partners International has a different view.

In spite of incredibly difficult global trading conditions wool exporters are managing to continue selling most wool at reasonably good prices.

The exporting difficulties are not limited to wool and run across the entire agricultural sector. They include a massively fluctuating Kiwidollar, getting international trade credit insurance to enable banks to finance their purchases and international customers defaulting on contracts.

“Our years of international business is enabling experienced wool exporters to find solutions to problems never previously faced by the New Zealand export industry,” Peter Crone from John Marshall & Co said. “Wool exporters are taking a leadership role with Government Ministers and officials on ways to cushion the impacts of the crisis for New Zealand farmers.

“Now is not the time to commit wool to rank amateurs like Wool Partners International who have no extensive track record to cope with the scale of the problem or understand the solutions that need to be put in place,” Mr Crone said.