Fighting must stop, report says

The beleaguered strong wool industry has been told to show maturity and stop fighting if it is to arrest continued declining prices.

The Government-commissioned Wool Taskforce reported yesterday on how to restore profitability to the $700 million export industry, and it offered a solution package that included being market-led, co-operation, identifying markets, new products and consumers and to play on wool's natural and sustainable attributes.

• Proactive response to wool report

That meant a shift in thinking from pushing supply and emphasising production to meeting the needs of the market and ultimately the consumer.

It warned against generic promotion of wool, saying it would not work.

While there was no silver bullet solution, the 24-page report said the sector needed to "move beyond old industry politics and noise".

For its size, the sector had a large number of interest groups and representative bodies, and while not listing those entities, the report said questions should be asked whether they all added value or obstructed the market-led direction the sector needed to be taking.

"The task force concluded that the large number of interest groups do not currently share a co-ordinated, overarching vision or strategy."

It said some organisations and activities were "positively damaging the sector," but did not provide specifics.

The report recommended the establishment of a collective industry voice and a sector marketing group which could leverage government funds for partnerships in market-led wool research and innovation projects.

That role was partly formed by Meat and Wool New Zealand, but farmers last year voted to stop pay levies in wool.

Reversing declining wool prices was seen as vital to ensuring sheep farming was viable, and the task force said the strong wool sector had a future.

Consumers in developed markets were demanding products that met new standards of sustainability, ethical production, social responsibility and environmentally sound production.

"Wool grown in New Zealand has all these inherent traits.

"Couple this with the right products and brands in the right markets with the right retailers and final producers, and there is an opportunity to restore profitability to wool growing and enhance the sheep farming proposition."

Wool was an ingredient in a product, and the report said demand for those end-products must increase in order to lift demand and prices for wool.

Competing synthetic products may claim values wool has naturally, and this must be backed up by verification systems.