The Country 08/08/25: Rachel Shearer talks to Jamie Mackay

The GM Wool for PGG Wrightson on the good, the bad and the dags of the current market.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today's piece of useless but interesting trivia comes from the
GM of Wool for PGG Rights, and her name is
Rachel Scharer. Now share is obviously a very good name
for the GM of Wool. But Rachel, you were telling
me your Christian name obviously Rachel, and Hebrew means gentle
as a lamb or does it mean an old you?

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Yeah, well, according to my mother it means a gentle
as a lamb, but if you google it it means
you a female sheep. So I'm going to go with
the gentle as a lamb. That sounds so nice, don't.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Yeah, Well, no one wants to be caught on old youth,
not at your age, Rachel, No, not at all. You've
still got all your teeth, haven't you?

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Most of them? Now?

Speaker 1 (00:43):
Good good news, bad news scenario for wall at the moment,
the mid micron stuff's had a real surge, which is God.
But most of the wall we produce in this country
isn't mid micron. Most of it's strong crossbred wall. It
weakened again yesterday at the name your sale strong wall
indicated down six cents. And here's another piece of useless

(01:05):
trivia for you which will surprise farmers certainly surprised me
as a former sheep farmer. Bellies and pieces are currently
close in price to fleetwall. What the hell's happening?

Speaker 2 (01:17):
I know who would believe it? And I think during
the COVID days, when bellies and pieces are around forty cents,
everybody stopped sending in their oddments, and now balleys and
pieces are not far off good quality shares. It's odd,
but what we're seeing and what we're believing is that
because of those low prices, a lot of exporters have

(01:40):
sold have forward sold into particularly the Asian markets where
are blended, and now they're struggling to fill that supply.
So it's a classic supply and demand story. But who
would have believed it on bellies and pieces.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
Absolutely, which begs the question I've got to go further
down this rabbit hole. What about DAGs? Are they now
worth some Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
DAGs are definitely worth something. And I think the thing
with DAGs as well is there's a great dag industry
here in New Zealand, a real cottage industry across the country,
and so DAGs are definitely worth sending in as well.
So as we're seeing the b trains roll through At
the moment, I'm hoping that growers get the message that
you know, it's worth bundling those up and putting them

(02:22):
in for our teams to teams to put on the market.
There is a market there for them.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
Yeah, but don't most farmers hock their DAGs off for cash.
I used to in the good old days. That was
my bear money after rugby. Yes, I shouldn't say that
the Inland Revenue Department might be listening, Rachel.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
They might be, but no, it's definitely worth taking the
time to send in the elements. That's so sure.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Okay, Explain to me this surge or relative surge in
the mid micron market twenty two to thirty one micron.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
Yeah, so it's up to sort of around twenty seven
percent up on the same time last year. And once
again we're seeing that strong activity come from the Asian markets.
There's some outstanding orders there and that's probably once again
that classic supply and demand story dwindling supply here in
the Southern Hemisphere as pushing up the demand in that

(03:11):
mid micron space. So if that's anything to go by,
we believe we're pretty well positioned for the final walls
when they start to hit the market in a couple
of weeks time.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
Yeah, I was going to say the pre lamb with
the Marinos is happening as we speak, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
Yeah, it is. Andsharing's actually a little bit ahead of
where it was last year, and we've had a really
good growing season. I don't know if you remember, but
last year climatic conditions meant that the fleece weights were back.
Production on the sheep sheep's back was back up to
about ten percent. So the classes and the growers and
the reps are all saying that the wall coming off
is looking really good, really strong quality as far as

(03:49):
the tensile strengths, as production looks to be up. So yeah,
all the feedback coming through from the sharing sheds is
that those white packs that are rolling in to our
stores at the moment a sut of good quality. So
we're looking forward to the Marinos season for sure.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
Rachel Scharer there, great surname, great Christian name, gentle as
a lamb. We'll chat to you again next month. Hopefully
the wall market we can see some recovery for the
strong wall.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
We certainly hope. So I'm not forward to talk to
you next month.