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Investment in a scouring plant is needed to help give a boost to the Irish wool industry, according to sheep farmers Godfrey Potterton and Evelyn Shannon. With wool prices standing at 70c/kg to 80c/kg and shearing costs per sheep up to €2.50, they believe that exporting wool to Bradford in the UK or to China is doing a disservice to our industry.
“We have 2.5m breeding sheep here in Ireland and their lambs. Some of the lambs are shorn as well, so we are producing up to 4m fleeces a year. That wool, I’m afraid to say, is being talked down by our wool merchants,” Potterton told the Irish Farmers Journal at a sheep shearing demonstration at the Tinahely Agricultural Show on Monday.
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“We need help from Teagasc, the Department of Agriculture and the universities to come on board and help us to add value to it.”
At the moment, Irish wool is sent abroad for processing and then imported again. The greatest mark-on price is on scouring, Evelyn Shannon said. This is a process that removes grease and dirt from the wool.
“Not only are we losing the value on the wool but also on the effluent from the scouring process which is great on gardens and land,” said Shannon, who manages the wool spinning tent at the Tinahely Show. “I don’t think we need to compete with Merino wool. It is a totally different product. Merino doesn’t have the memory that the Romney or Bluefaced Leicester wool has.”
She added that Irish wool could go after the outer garment, insulation and carpet markets. This has the potential to double or treble the value of the wool industry in Ireland. The Central Statistics Office estimated that the value of wool output in 2017 was €3.29m, considerably lower than the 2016 amount, which was €5.01m.
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