By Lloyd Phillips
South Africa’s primary wool value chain has had a difficult time since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020. However, more recent and anticipated developments hold promise for a positive turnaround in these fortunes.
It is undisputed that, since early 2020, South Africa’s primary wool value chain has been struggling greatly. Challenges have included the likes of worldwide upheavals in logistics, markets and economies due to the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as stock theft, predation, diseases, increased production costs and even threats from mining.
“However, it’s not all bad news. Various role-players in our highly organised and diverse wool value chain have been working long and hard behind the scenes, often without wool growers being aware of it, to rebuild and create opportunities for our national wool clip,” says Annelize Smit van Niekerk. She is the National Wool Growers’ Association’s (NWGA) production advisor for Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Free State, and is also a wool producer in Mpumalanga.
“We need to see the bigger picture,” she told an NWGA/Zoetis/AntroVet Sheep Farmers’ Information Day held recently in KwaZulu-Natal’s Estcourt district.
The first key positive is that South Africa is the world’s second biggest producer of certified sustainable wool – 47% of its over 40 million kilograms of wool produced annually is done to globally acceptable ethical, social, economic and environmental standards. This percentage also continues to grow.
“I don’t think there are very many South African wool growers who don’t already farm sustainably. They just need to apply for their official certification from one or more of the various recognised industry bodies. This significant, and growing, proportion of certified wool puts us in a unique competitive position globally.”
Small percentage, big impression
Although South Africa produces only 2% to 3% of the world’s wool supply, this South African production supplies 12% of the world’s apparel market where “the big money” is.
As the world’s end-consumers increasingly demand sustainably produced wool products, so wool buyers and processors are increasingly prepared to pay more for such wool from South Africa. An added advantage is that 64% of South Africa’s highly sought-after Merino wool is also certified as sustainably produced.
“All the standards available for South African wool are important because we are competing on the global market. Our growers who don’t want to get certified are going to find it increasingly difficult to find markets willing to pay what their wool is worth.”
“A goal of South Africa’s primary wool value chain is to eventually have all wool growers certified so that they can all unlock the benefits of improved market access and prices in the world.”
According to Annelize, the NWGA and Cape Wools have also formed relationships with the likes of forensic science company Oritain and agricultural sustainability advisory company IntegrityAg. The former company can use DNA testing to ensure wool buyers, processors and retailers are not mixing certified and uncertified wool and then marketing it unscrupulously as 100% certified wool or as the products thereof. The latter company is objectively and accurately assessing the carbon footprint of South African wool so that any deliberately or inadvertently false information can be countered with science.
“There are various systems in use or in development so that our national primary wool value chain can be fully transparent and have 100% traceability. This information is used to promote South African wool around the world. There is lots of effort going on behind the scenes to keep South Africa’s wool industry viable and growing.”
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