The way New Zealand strong wool is traded is broken and needs to be fixed if growers are to see sustainable returns for their work, delegates at the recent Primary Industries Summit were told.
During a panel discussion on the future of wool, both Federated Farmers meat and wool chair Toby Williams and Devold NZ general manager Craig Smith said the auction system is not working for either farmers or consumers.
Smith said that right now the wool supply chain is long and complex and many of the brands at the end of it are not engaged enough with those earlier in the chain.
“There’s that disconnect between the brand and the grower – a lot of brands have no idea,” he said.
“Big corporate brands, global brands, have come to New Zealand and said, ‘We want to buy some wool direct from the farm like you do.’ I ask, ‘Well, what wool do you buy?’ ‘Well, I don’t know. It just arrives.’ So we’ve got to get the brands to invest in the product that they’re buying.”
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