The Australian Wool Industry continues to take action to address wool preparation and contamination issues.
At a recent meeting of the China Australia Joint Working Group, China raised the issue of clip preparation and contamination being found in Australian wool bales. This contamination leads to reduced wool quality, posing a significant threat to the industry.
AWEX CEO, Mr Mark Grave said, “Australia has an international reputation of producing the best wool in the world due to the adherence to our stringent clip preparation standards, however we have heard from our major customer that preparation issues, particularly contamination are on the rise.”
The industry’s reliance on producing high-quality wool means that wool bale contamination is a major concern for producers, agents, buyers and processors.
WoolProducers CEO, Ms Jo Hall said, “Woolgrowers invest significant time and resources to produce their clip, however they must remain vigilant during harvesting to ensure that contaminants, such as clothing, bale hooks and twine do not make it into bales and that classing standards are maintained.”
Over the years the Australian industry has implemented several measures aimed at preventing and managing wool bale contamination, including education and training of growers, harvesting staff and brokers about the importance of maintaining clean clips.
National Council of Wool Selling Brokers of Australia, Mr Rowan Woods said, “Everyone has a part to play in ensuring that Australia maintains its reputation of being the best wool producer in the world by ensuring that the quality of our clip remains first class and contaminant free.”
During the domestic supply chain process there is also an opportunity for AWTA to detect contamination in wool samples sent for testing.
Mr Michael Jackson, MD of AWTA said, “While not a failsafe method of detection, when contamination is found there is a process whereby measures are taken to notify both the owner and classer of the wool and appropriate action can be taken, however the easiest way to avoid contamination is to keep it out in the first place.”
The work being undertaken by the Australian industry to enhance wool traceability also demonstrates the commitment to ensuring that our customers’ concerns regarding clip preparation issues can be acted on in a timely manner.
The President of the Australian Council of Wool Exporters, Mr Josh Lamb said, “While the industry has a traceability system in place, we are collectively working on enhancements to this system to ensure timelier tracing of product which will be of benefit to the entire supply chain, including our customers when quality issues arise.”
“The sooner we are notified of an issue, the sooner we can take corrective action.” Mr Lamb said.
The current labour shortage being experienced in the wool harvesting sector is also playing a significant role in clip preparation issues.
Mr John Roberts, AWI CEO said, “Currently, it is not only harder to find adequate numbers of staff, but it is more expensive than ever to employ harvesting labour. It has to be understood by our customers that quality costs money but unfortunately, we are not seeing this reflected in the market.”
“Industry is committed to ensuring that those workers that we do engage are able to do their jobs in a professional manner, through ongoing training of shearers, wool handlers and wool classers”, Mr Roberts said.
ENDS
WoolProducers - Jo Hall, 0488 554 811
ACWEP - Josh Lamb: 0419 841 609 AWEX - Mark Grave: 0414314 705 AWI - Kevin Wilde: 0436 031 277 AWTA - Michael Jackson: 0407 051450 NCWSBA - Rowan Woods: 0428 638 561