Helping grow
the country

Created in 2016 at the request of global brands demanding higher than ever assurances for their wool products, the Responsible Wool Standard (RWS) is the only truly global wool assurance standard. RWS is a tool used to certify and recognise the best practices of farmers on a global scale. It ensures all points on the supply chain are certified to the highest standards.

Other global standards, such as the Responsible Down Standard and the Responsible Mohair Standard, have both been developed by the same governing body in recent years.

New Zealand farmers are well placed to meet the RWS standard, which enables farmers to differentiate their wool as ‘RWS Certified.’

Demand for RWS wool is growing. Any growers interested in learning more should contact us: we can help explain and guide you through the process.

As Bloch & Behrens is RWS certified, we are well placed to market RWS wool.

You can learn more about the RWS here: https://textileexchange.org/responsible-wool/

As the global COVID-19 pandemic continues, the International Wool Textile Organisation (IWTO) has evaluated its ongoing impact. Wool growers, brokers, processors and manufacturers have all been adversely affected, it reports.

Impacts of COVID monitored by IWTO include:

•  Australian wool prices falling by 36 per cent, and as much as 47 per cent elsewhere throughout the world. This has prompted Wool Producers Australia to forecast a further decline in what are already 95-year low production levels.

•  Orders for wool selling agents and buyers plunged, first from China, then spreading through east Asia, India, Europe and elsewhere.

•  Wool processors’ order books shrank 30 to 40 per cent.

•  Wool clothing exports from China were down 33 per cent in the first four months of 2020.

•  Clothing retail sales for the year to May dropped by as much as 38 per cent in major wool consuming countries, driving many famous tailored apparel retail brands to the brink of bankruptcy, while sales of floor-coverings fell similarly.

According to IWTO: “The wool supply chain includes tens of thousands of wool farmers and thousands of other companies involved in transforming raw wool into textiles. The supply chain resembles a long goods train. Signals from one end take a long time to reach the other. With wool farmers each making their own decision about selling product, no single organisation can stop this.

“The goods train that is the global wool industry has hit a brick wall, but the back end is still moving forward. It is vital that information about the impact of the crisis is provided quickly to all involved, particularly back to the wool farmers, so they can make fully informed decisions.”

Rosie Moore is an administrator for PGG Wrightson Wool in Napier, a job she started in July 2019.

“My main role is wool administration in the Napier office, which covers everything from wool sales to putting the catalogue together for our fortnightly auctions.

“Being involved in typing and valuing the wool for auction, and helping on auction day, means I follow the process all the way through from when the wool enters the store to when it is sold at auction. I also deal with the grower contract wool, which we supply to our export company, Bloch & Behrens, serving as their contact point,” she explains.

Rosie grew up on a lifestyle property in Central Hawke’s Bay. Although hers is not a farming family, she loved the rural life.

“My parents have an eight hectare property. We always had horses, would raise pet lambs each year, and hand milked a house cow. It was a tiny taster of what farming is really like: the sanitised version,” she says.

Rosie wanted more than a taste. Not realising it was possible to study farming as a degree she originally planned to do veterinary science, then came across agricultural
science at Massey, which was exactly what she wanted.

“I worked on farms through uni, though not much with sheep and beef and almost nothing with wool. In three years through my degree, I only had two lectures on wool. I didn’t have any idea there were so many jobs in the wool industry. All the focus is on dairy, and sheep and beef to a lesser extent. As for wool, we just didn’t hear about it,” she says.

Graduating in 2016, she spent a year travelling, working on farms in the United Kingdom and France, before coming home to a job at Waiterenui, a large Hawke’s Bay sheep and beef farm and Angus stud.

“That was my first real exposure to shepherding, and it was a great introduction that I really enjoyed, though I wanted to move beyond being on the farm,” she says.

Her present job was the only one Rosie applied for. She hit the bullseye first time, and loved it from day one.

“Even with my degree, I was starting at zero with wool. I did understand production, and was used to dealing with farmers, though had so much to learn. Doing the job has increased my knowledge and through support from PGG Wrightson, in January I started the two year Southern Institute of Technology wool handling course with Laurie Boniface,”
says Rosie.

As a recent convert, her enthusiasm for wool knows no limit.

“All the talk about the environment and sustainability: our industry is doing it already. We know how wonderful wool is, now we need to make sure that message reaches the average consumer. Wool ticks all the boxes. How do we put that story out there, particularly overseas? I’ve lived overseas, and the awareness is even lower there. You can’t go into a shop and buy the lovely merino clothing like we can,” she says.

Rosie reckons the industry offers plenty
of opportunities.

“Sometimes you have to go looking for them. Even though there are challenges at the moment, and everyone else who works here can remember the good times, I’ve come in at rock bottom, and I can see it is only going one way from here.

“Sometimes people get sick of me banging on about wool, but I’m not making any apologies,” she says.