Wool industry 'precarious' after vote to end levy

The vote by wool farmers to discontinue paying a levy to Meat and Wool New Zealand leaves the industry in "a pretty precarious position", one farming leader says.

Meat and Wool may have to consider dropping the "wool" from its name after farmers voted at the weekend to stop funding wool industry work via a levy to the body.

However, voter turnout was only 39 per cent, and Federated Farmers meat and fibre chairman Bruce Wills said the result was the cost of apathy. "I'm sure there's a lot of farmers that woke up [on Monday] morning and saw those results and kicked themselves."

Wills said farmers suffering from ever decreasing wool prices would now have to hope that commercial marketing efforts - recently launched by Elders Primary Wool and competitor Wool Partners International - would pick up where Meat and Wool now had to leave off.

But in the meantime more and more farmers were making the decision to get out of fibre.

"I just hope that when they start to work we've got some wool left."

One group of growers, Romney New Zealand, lobbied against the levy, sending an open letter to farmers.

It said research by Elders showed that US carpet consumers did not recognise the longstanding Fern Mark, now part of Wool Partners International's marketing efforts.

It said Wool Partners International was a likely benefactor of the proposed levy and "we cannot in all conscience recommend to wool growers that these failed programmes should continue".

WPI chief executive Iain Abercrombie said that was "just rubbish", as farmers voted five years ago to stop marketing of the Fern Mark.

WPI had been contracted by Meat and Wool to run three overseas trade shows.

It had also provided technical advice on establishing a sustainability standard for wool carpet in the US - rather than having to compete under the same standard as synthetic carpet.

He said a lot of growers would not have been aware WPI did that work on their behalf, and the work would now stop with the axing of the levy.

It was a concern that with the exit of Meat and Wool there was no centralised body representing the interests of growers.

He said WPI was interested in trying to co-ordinate with its rival Elders but "they have indicated for a bunch of reasons that they don't believe they can work with us". Elders managing director Stuart Chapman said he was "waiting for the phone call".

He said Elders and WPI had two different strategies for New Zealand strongwool - it was targeting US retailers, while WPI was focusing on carpet manufacturers.

Elders saw the "no" vote as a mandate to continue on with its programme.