First Steps.......First Steps.......
The Wool Industry
In 1977, I was new to the Wool Industry and knew little about its history and policies. Few Australians appreciate its size, though most might have school memories of Australia riding on the sheep's back in the last century. Yet it is still one of Australia's foremost industries, and one of our most forward looking industries, despite its conservative image. A little background information will help set the rest of this book in perspective.
At the time of writing, the industry is enduring a devastating downturn caused partly by over optimism in attempting to control the price, and an unfortunate coincidental withdrawal of our major customers from the wool market. Trade with China was suspended in response to the events in Beijing in May 1989, and economies in Eastern Europe are in chaos. Yet the industry has a long term view and is maintaining its research and development programme, and increasing its spending on wool promotion around the world.
With a turnover which recently reached $5,000,000,000, it is the largest single industry apart from coal mining. With government support, the industry spends $40,000,000 per year on technical research and development. Much of the research is directed at long term projects with payback periods measured in decades. Nearly $150,000,000 is spent each year on first class world wide promotion and advertising; this too is recognized to be a long term investment. These policies are in stark contrast to most of Australian industry which spends little on research and development and uses advertising programmes based more on fantasy and desire rather than product quality.
The popular image of vast sheep flocks roaming the outback has been replaced by tens of thousands of smaller farms. The greatest numbers of sheep are concentrated around Kojonup in WA, Hamilton in Victoria, and Dubbo in New South Wales, typically on fertile rolling hills too steep for grain farming. The average flock size is about 3000 sheep, and less than 30% of the 180,000,000 sheep in Australia are in flocks of 4000 or more. After adding in lambs, about 220,000,000 sheep are shorn each year, mainly by about 12,000 professional shearers. The shearers work in teams of four or five, and travel from farm to farm with a classer, sometimes a cook, and work with four to five rouseabouts carrying the wool to the classer and pressing the sorted fleece lines. Farmers spend about $500,000,000 on shearing each year in direct costs, and an unknown amount on building and maintaining shearing sheds.
Patsy Adam Smith has written an excellent book 'The Shearers' for readers who would like to know more about traditional shearing in Australia.
What you have just read was written in 1990 before the great wool industry crash which saw its $2,000,000,000 surplus change to a $4,000,000,000 debt in just a few months. This not only brought the industry to a halt, but also stopped nearly all research work. Our project survived the crash, but its future was circumscribed. When the time came for commercial development, it stopped. Fortunately. But that's another story.
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September 1997