How is shearers/ shedhands training to be funded

Behind-the-scenes efforts are under way to find a new funding stream to train shearers and shedhands. Agriculture industry training organistion chief executive Kevin Bryant said he was working closely with M&WNZ and others in the wool industry ahead of a series of meetings to try and find a replacement for the $300,000 farmers provided to fund the training of shearers and shedhands. Chaiman Mike Petersen said the board's chairman, Scott Champion, would convene a meeting in the next few weeks to discuss the industry contributing to the training of shearers, woolhandlers and classers. Those invited to attend include the Council of Wool Exporters, the NZ Merino Company, Woolpartners, Elders Primary Wool and shearing contractors. "The fact is farmers said no to the wool levy so we obviously lost $300,000 of M&WNZ contribution and that leveraged close to $1.5 million of government money which allowed us to provide subsidised training to over 1000 shearers and woolhandlers through a partnership with Tectra." If the industry did not contribute to training, then neither would the Government, but Mr Bryant said farmers could end up paying anyway. If the wool industry did not come up with $300,000, shearers and woolhandlers would seek to recover their training costs through the rates they charged sheep farmers, he said. "If by May next year nothing changes and training is to continue, the only way to secure it in the absence of industry funding, is contributions through fees." Mr Bryant said his organisation would take a lead role in trying to find a solution by talking to the wider wool industry, and the initial step in that process was discussing options with the various parties to ensure they were all thinking along similar lines. Mr Petersen described the funding collapse as "market failure", but he also said there were wider issues.