"I believe in wool. I even wear it and I've got woollen carpet in my house," Federated Farmers' Wanganui meat and fibre chairman Tim Matthews says.
He's going to vote for reinstating a wool levy when he gets the chance - between September 10 and October 10.
Mr Matthews has 5500 sheep and shears them twice a year. He said sometimes the cost of shearing is barely covered by the prices he gets for the wool. He'd like to see those prices improve, and a wool levy should help.
"We're knocking the stuff off our sheep anyway. Let's add a bit of value to it and let people know how good it really is."
Wool from his sheep ranges from 28 microns from a first shear lamb to 40 microns from older animals. Like most North Island farmers he sells it at auction in Napier and most of it ends up being scoured in New Zealand but carded and spun in China and India and made into carpet and upholstery fabric in China, Europe, the United States or United Kingdom.
For most of the 30 years Mr Matthews has been farming wool prices have been low. Most carpets are now made with what he calls "nasty synthetics".
Prices were better last year and in 2011, due to demand outstripping supply. There was only 154,000 tonnes of coarse wool available, as compared to the usual 188,000 tonnes. But wool is a commodity and the prices tend to go in cycles.
In 2009 farmers voted against a wool levy, but that vote was narrowly won. It's calculated in two ways - first on farmer numbers and second on farmer numbers weighted by how many sheep they have. In 2009 the sheep-weighted vote was to carry on with the levy, but the majority of individual farmers wanted to end it.
There was a perception that it was "somewhat wasted" and a handful of individuals led a pretty active campaign against it.
"The farmers that didn't produce much wool voted against it," Mr Matthews said.
He thinks the levy was useful.
"We lost an awful lot of things when that levy went."
Funds left over from that levy were made over to pay the expenses of the voluntary Wool Levy Group. It consists of farmers, processors, marketers and researchers and is chaired by Gisborne farmer Sandra Faulkner, who has 2500 sheep.
Those funds will run out in November, she said.
There are 17,000 farmers eligible to vote on whether they want a new levy. If they vote yes a report will go to the Primary Industries Minister and legislation must be passed.
What's proposed is a levy of 3 to 5 cents per kilogram of wool, payable as the sheep leave the farm. An average sheep has 5.4kg of wool and at 3 cents per kilogram 16 cents would be added to the levy. The wool of 5000 sheep would put $810 into it and the annual total would be $4.6 million.
The Wool Levy Group proposes to spend $.5 million on collecting data, communicating with growers and negotiating trade deals. The same amount would go on research and development - with potential top ups from government.
Administration would cost another $.5 million, and the proposal is to have a board of three elected and two appointed members.
But the bulk of the money, $2.7 million, would go on raising demand, wool testing, teaching, marketing and design. Mrs Faulkner thinks that's the best part. She said it would build capability and encourage young people back into the industry.
She regarded having the levy as similar to doing routine maintenance on her farm.
"If I don't do the repairs and maintenance spend on the farm, my farm in five years' time would look very shabby."
Mr Matthews hopes the levy will get approval and whatever new organisation is formed will be "lean and very mean". He'd like to see lots of research about growing and processing wool, and new uses for it.
Both he and Mrs Faulkner said the international Campaign for Wool led by Prince Charles was getting some traction, though that was mainly evident overseas. And Mr Matthews said New Zealand's Just Shorn campaign, for wool carpets, was also having an effect.
In an age of synthetics those campaigns did teach people new things.
"There are people in the United States who think you can't get wool without killing a sheep," he said.
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In 1860 wool made up 90 per cent of New Zealand's exports by value. By 1920 it was down to 26 per cent and according to Statistics New Zealand it had slipped to 1.6 per cent in 2011 and volume was also down.
Even at that percentage, New Zealand is the second largest wool exporter in the world, after Australia, and wool earns the country nearly $1 billion a year.
Sheep numbers in New Zealand have slipped from a peak of 70 million in 1982 to 31 million in 2011. The number of dairy cows doubled during that time.