Whanganui farmers dumping wool as low price erodes profits

Farmers are dumping belly wool and dags as the low price of wool makes turning over a profit extremely hard. Photo/ Bevan Conley

The low price of wool is causing a decline in wool production as Whanganui farmers explore alternatives.

Paul Rabone, who has worked in the wool industry since he left school, said it was currently the worst he had ever seen for farmers.

“Over three decades, it’s just eroded the volume of wool that we produce, and the price is just falling so much.

“The cost of getting wool off is the highest it’s ever been, and the price of wool is, in some cases, as low as it’s ever been.”

Rabone said in his job as a Whanganui agent for Wools of New Zealand, one of the main things he’d noticed was farmers were now dumping low-cost wool.

“It’s gotten to the point now where farmers are dumping their really low-value wool. So, the belly wool at this time of the year is hard to get totally dry, so if the belly wool has mud in it or is damp, they’re dumping them.

“A lot of the dags have virtually no value, so they’re dumping them as well - it’s not worth their while [to go to the effort of] pressing them up and sending them.”

Rabone said he did not think farmers would turn their back on the wool industry altogether.

“Most hill country farmers are committed to sheep. They’ll try to feed their sheep better and produce more wool off of each animal; I’ve seen a few farmers trying to do their own shearing, but that’s not really practical because of the time it takes.”

Federated Farmers Whanganui Meat & Wool chairman Grant Adkins said farmers were not selecting sheep for wool any more, but instead were buying based on meat production or fertility.

“They’re going to hairless sheep or hair sheep like Wiltshire; at the moment, wool is a cost to us, so farmers are very much looking at changing to breeds that grow less wool so we don’t have to pay shearers as much.”

Adkins said there was a huge decline in the amount of wool being produced, and one contributing factor was farming land being transferred into forestry.

“Urbanisation is taking up more land as well, and lifestyle blocks are chopping up the medium-type country where there would have been sheep.”

Adkins said there needed to be major advertising campaigns targeting the international markets to promote woollen products.

“We really need cross-bred wool to be used in bulk in carpets. That is its main use, and until that happens, the price of wool won’t really change.”

He said the benefits of wool carpets, such as the fact they were renewable and provided more insulation, had to be better communicated to the New Zealand public.

“Farmers are really adaptable in following markets; if you’re not making money out of one thing or it looks like it won’t be good in the long term, you get out of there.

“If the wool suddenly went up to $10 per kilogram, farmers would be back into it.”

Eva de Jong is a reporter for the Whanganui Chronicle covering health stories and general news. She began as a reporter in 2023.