Richard Dawkins: Federated Farmers Wool Chair on the efforts to drive up the value of wool

Are we in for a wool revival? 

Industry leaders are meeting at a number of workshops next week, with the aim of driving up value. 

Stats show strong wool now makes up just 1-2% of gross farm income, compared to nearly 65% in the 1980s. 

Federated Farmers Wool Chair Richard Dawkins told Mike Hosking there’s good collabroation happening between government, industry, and various initiatives to drive up value. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The push is on for wool and to get it
back to its glory days. Industry leaves got a bunch
of workshops coming up next week in an attempt to
drive up value. You know how I feel about wool.
Strong wall now makes up just one to two percent
of gross farm income compared with nearly sixty five percent
in the eighties, if you can believe it. Richard Dawkins
fed Farmer's Wool chairers. Well, there's Richard morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Yeah, good morning, Mike.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
The wool story, it's many and varied. I mean, strong
is not marino, is it?

Speaker 2 (00:26):
No? I know, So there's different different classes of wool.
Marino there's certainly worth a hell of a lot more
than what we call mid micron and strong wool. But
strong wol was certainly the most common in New Zealand.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
So what are you trying to do with strong? And
do you hold out hope?

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Oh? Look, there is hope. So there's really good collaboration
going on between government and industry and various initiatives just
to drive a bit of value back into the wall
and also looking at that whole supply chain, the value chain,
trying to return value to the farmer.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
What do you do? I mean specifically, what can you do?
I mean, I think about we talked about things like
Bremworth and they said we're going to do wool carpet,
and you talk about Winston Peters and there's only wool
carpet in Parliament. Stuff like that. So people are trying
to help. Is there a genuine future for strong wool
and carpet and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yeah, so there's various channels. I mean, carpets are one
end uce, but there's higher value end uces as well,
And so the likes of Wall Impact are looking at
those high value customers and building relationships. Internationally, Ron's is
looking at new technologies, and campaign for Wall are looking
at promotion. So there's a lot going on in that

(01:37):
space and we're just trying to have a few workshops
and explain that to growers.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
Does everybody know about the tennis balls at the US Open?

Speaker 2 (01:46):
We sorry, Mike, you just cut out there.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
The tennis balls at the US Open. Do you realize
the tennis balls that the US Open and made from
New Zealand strong wool?

Speaker 2 (01:54):
Yeah? I saw and saw that that article and actually
a few years ago I was told tennis was becoming
a compulsory sport in the Chinese curriculum, and we were
to expect this bump and strong wall values. But yeah,
fair to say that never came to fruition.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
Mike, No, exactly. Well, good luck with the workshops and
we'll follow with a great deal of interest. You know,
I'm a fan of it all. Richar Dawkins, who's the
Federated Farmer's Walls here? I thought he hadn't heard about
the tennis ball story. There. For a moment, I thought,
how can you be in strong wool not known about
the tennis ball story.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
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