AS THE corporate arm of the wool industry jockeys for first place to woo the bulk of the crossbred clip, a South Canterbury shearing contractor shares his perspective.
Bruce Rogers is also a sheep farmer and well aware of the changes in the landscape as dairying and lifestyle blocks swallow up sheep farms.
He believes one of the problems is that too many hands touch the wool beyond the farm gate and want payment for it. Mr Rogers questions the need for some of the people involved and feels they should look at whether they are enhancing the wool industry.
Along with other farmers he found it difficult to understand what was happening at the corporate level of the wool industry because it was being complicated by companies which had disestablished, and the emergence of new ones, and farmers not being consulted or informed other than through the media, about changes which they were then expected to support.
“This stuff going on at the top, unfortunately it is out of our control. It appears a lot of the corporates involved in wool have contempt for us farmers and contractors, but maybe if they came and visited us and listened to the grower they might see things differently.
“We are all striving for the same goal and should be committed to both sides of the industry. I would love to see it sorted and wool properly marketed.
“All of these corporate groups have a piece of the puzzle - if they don’t sit down together soon and sort something out, the whole industry is ‘buggered’.”
Bruce lives on his 600ha property at Arundel, north of Geraldine. His contracting business covers a large area of South Canterbury and reaches into North Otago and parts of South Otago.
As sheep numbers dwindle, the contracting costs had increased which impacted on the economies of efficiencies for the business because a certain number of sheep must be shorn to remain viable.
Mr Rogers had invested heavily in the business and provides accommodation, vehicles to transport staff, cooking facilities, a cook and wages to name a few. This means his manager Pip can attract top staff, who will provide a high-quality service for her farmer clients.
Lately, Pip has had to extend the client base to provide the shearers with continual work. This may require the shearers to travel two hours either way to a woolshed on top of their eight hours of shearing.
Sometimes they have to stay “out”, which is a logistical exercise for Pip who arranges the transport in, of all their food for the duration as well as sorting out accommodation.
The competitive nature of the industry means bigger outfits like Mr Rogers’s are better positioned to withstand the downturn while still able to provide a quality service the ex-shearer is proud of.
As a sign of the times the number of shearers he employs now has almost halved compared with eight years ago.
With wool prices so low, most farmers struggled with the costs of shearing, compared with the kilogram price they now received for their wool.
“They don’t mind paying us,- they just need a bigger margin on their wool.”
There was also less incentive for farmers to focus on growing good-quality fleeces again.
Mr Rogers said it was easy for wool corporations to criticise the lack of wool quality and demand better.
“It’s something they don’t understand, that we are told to produce to a high quality, but they pay us ‘crap’ for it.
“As a shearing contractor my standards have not dropped because my reputation is tied up with how the wool is presented.”
He said he was tired of hearing about the tight profit margin wool exporters worked with.
“It seems like they are so focused on their tight margins, they seem to overlook that we farmers and contractors have no margins.”
He lives in hope that one day, wool merchants or exporters will actually arrange to meet with farmers and contractors and hear their side of the story.
“If a farmer sends a ewe to the saleyards and gets say $80 for it, of that, he will get charged $4.80 for selling it by a stock firm then there are transport costs as well.
“The point is, I invest in the whole business, take the wool off, package it and leave the shed tidy for around $3.50 per ewe.
“The wool corporates have no appreciation of how hard we work, or of how difficult it is for shearing contractors or farmers to get a decent return on our product or service.”
sandyfinnie@xtra.c o.nz
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