Wool industry 'precarious' after vote to end levy

The vote by wool farmers to discontinue paying a levy to M&WNZ leaves the industry in "a pretty precarious position", one farming leader says. However, voter turnout was only 39%, and Fed Farmers meat and fibre chairman Bruce Wills said the result was the cost of apathy reports The NZ Herald. 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. 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.