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.