How we can save the Wool Industry

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By Dwain Duxson.

How we can save the Wool Industry - Ken Solly, one of the wise people of Agricultural, wrote a thought-provoking piece in the Stock Journal this week. Take a read first and then come back, it's at the bottom of the page.

The bit where he said: "we get very few Wool products in the smaller category", got me thinking. Yes, it's probably true that Wool wouldn't make many people's wardrobes, maybe because it's too dear; the itch factor still hangs around like a bad smell even though it's not true anymore. Other factors would come into it.

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But what if we got our friends at AWI to market Wool on a wear-to-cost ratio? In this cost-of-living-crisis world we live in, we could compare, say, a synthetic t-shirt to a Wool t-shirt; the synthetic one costs, say, $40 and can be worn 100 times max, and the Wool one costs $80 and can be worn 400 times max. So the wear-to-cost ratio is 40 cents a wear for synthetics, and the Wool one was 20 cents a wear. Promote that on the garment label, and away you go.

In this day of AI you could do a test and work out a formula that would be fair to both garments. We know Wool would win because it's a superior product. I wear Wool jumpers every coolish day that I have had for 5 years; some would be older. Image the wear-to-cost ratio on those. So rather than marketing Wool on fluffy words like sustainable, natural, cool, renewable, etc, market it on pure economics and pump that out to the world of value conscious clothes shoppers. If you know anyone in AWI, send this to them for consideration at their next board meeting. Do you have anything to add? Reply to dwaind@farmtender.com.au

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