PICTURE BUTTE, Alta. – Woolen socks can be a valuable commodity on a cold winter night, but they’re not making Canadian sheep producers rich.
For many producers, the money received for their clip does not cover the cost of shearing.
Tony Haley, chief wool grader for Canadian Co-operative Wool Growers Ltd. in Lethbridge, Alta., partly blames low prices on the Asian financial crisis.
To earn American currency, Haley says, Asian nations flooded the North American market with cheap wool goods and drove down the price.
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“You can’t compete against developing nations with low priced labor making low priced garments,” he said.
The popularity of synthetic fabrics is another problem, as it has steadily eroded the international wool market over the last 50 years.
As well, the quality of Canadian wool is variable because of excessive cross breeding and too many breeds. The wool gets mixed into a pool, producing a scratchier, coarser product.
Haley said this reputation for coarseness doesn’t have to be a bad thing.
“It doesn’t make any difference,” he said. “They all have different end uses.”
Coarser fibre is woven into carpets that are static free and hard-wearing.
Wool from sheep like Rambouillet, Columbia or Targhee are used to make finer wool products.
When grading wool, Haley looks for cleanliness, soundness and an even crimp where all waves are the same. The fleece must be free of vegetable matter and paint that is used to mark animals.
Besides sheep’s wool, Haley has also graded alpaca fleece and recently received a shipment of muskox wool from Inuvik, NWT. It contains coarse guard hairs, but underneath there is a fine down used for high quality garments.
