The following ‘position paper’ was issued in the last week of February 2012 and is signed by 17 trade organisations representing European and North American textile apparel manufacturers, retailers and brands on the practice of mulesing in the Australian wool industry.

•   As the world’s largest supplier of wool, and an essential supplier of finer-gauge wool, the Australian wool industry is a valued partner for North American and European wool apparel retailers and brands.

•    An important issue affecting this relationship is the continued use by many in the Australian wool industry of surgical mulesing of sheep as a preventative measure against blow fly strike, an animal- husbandry technique that is uniformly opposed by animal-welfare organizations.

•    Wool  apparel  retailers  and  brands  in  North  America  and  Europe  reaffirm  their  goal  that  the Australian wool industry expeditiously identify and adopt viable alternatives to surgical mulesing.

•    In addition, we call upon the representative organisations of the Australian wool industry to develop a strategy with measureable milestones to achieve this goal.

•    As  part  of  this  effort,  we  strongly  support  ongoing  research  by the  Australian  Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and other organisations and individuals in Australia.

•    This research has identified breech wrinkle, breech cover, dung-coated wool (“dags”), and urine stain as four primary risk factors for fly-strike among Merino sheep, with the establishment of a scoring system to assist wool growers in identifying higher-risk animals.

American Apparel & Footwear Association (AAFA)

The Association of European Fashion Retailers (AEDT)

British Retail Consortium (BRC)

Canadian Apparel Federation (CAF)

Foreign Trade Association (FTA)

National Council of Textile Organizations (NCTO)

National Retail Federation (NRF)

Nordic Initiative Clean and Ethical (NICE) Norwegian Fashion Institute

Outdoor Industry Association (OIA)

Retail Council of Canada (RCC)

Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA)

Svensk Handel (Swedish Trade Association)

Textilimportörerna (Textile Importers’ Association in Sweden)

United States Association of Importers of Textiles and

Apparel (USA-ITA)

Virke (Federation of Norwegian Enterprises)

Wool Working Group

Just Style Author: Leonie Barrie | 24 November 2011

Some of the world’s leading brands and retailers have teamed up to release a joint ‘roadmap’ outlining the steps they intend to take to achieve the goal of zero discharge of hazardous chemicals in their supply chains by 2020.

Adidas Group, C&A, H&M, Li Ning, Nike Inc and Puma say the plan, unveiled this week, sets a new standard of environmental performance for the global apparel and footwear industry. And they are calling on other firms in the global apparel and footwear industry to join the initiative.

In particular, it includes specific commitments and timelines to realise their goal, including conducting pilot projects at major, vertically integrated and materials suppliers between 2011 and 2013 to better understand scope of use and discharge of hazardous chemicals.

They also intend to verify that nine classes of hazardous or persistent chemicals are not currently used, and will initiate an inventory of all chemicals used in apparel manufacturing by the end of 2012.

Other steps include disclosing the results of all pilots and studies undertaken as part of this commitment, and reporting regularly and publicly on their progress, quarterly in 2012 and annually from 2013 to 2020.

The firms see the joint roadmap as a “living” document, and say it will continue to be refined in response to the initial pilots and research carried out, as well as collaboration with other brands and stakeholders. They also note it will be reviewed and updated at least annually.

One of their first steps has been to ask consultancy SustainAbility to solicit feedback from a key group of stakeholders over the next six weeks. In addition, they are also accepting comments from the public until 31 December and, based on this feedback, will consider refining the roadmap in 2012.

“Tackling and achieving the goal of zero discharge is a complex challenge – one that our brand collaboration cannot solve alone,” the firms said in a joint statement.

“Our vision is that the roadmap serves as a benchmark and that many more brands join us in our efforts. Ultimately, we want and need a broad array of participants to partner with us in this endeavour: chemical suppliers, academics, NGOs, textile experts, entrepreneurs, policy makers and others.

“We understand that we are setting out to change the way apparel and footwear is manufactured, globally, and are thus casting our net wide for the best ideas and solutions.”

Andrew Michael of Leahcim Merino Stud

If the prices paid for Merino rams this season are any guide, the trend is back to big wool cuts. But there is also more, according to South Australian stud breeder Andrew Michael.

“The demand is also for fertility, plainer bodies and no horns,” he said.

Mr Michael’s Leahcim Poll Merino at Snowtown saw that trend first-hand last month when he cleared his entire offering of 200 rams for an average of $2988 and a record gross of $597,600.

Mr Michael said he believed he was seeing the emergence of a new generation of breeders who used genetic performance data to boost the productivity of their flocks.

The Leahcim Poll Merino stud is not only a registered soft-rolling-skin flock but is trait leader in Sheep Genetics’ MerinoSelect.

Leahcim’s sale average was $900 up on last year’s clearance of 176 rams.

The Leahcim demand for plainer-bodied, productive sheep was repeated at Bill Walker’s multi-vendor Classings sale at Murray Bridge, where 95 rams averaged $4878, and at the Carter family’s Wallaloo Park, with an average of $3495 from 143 rams.

At the Classings and Wallaloo Park sales, the top money was paid for polled rams.

Mr Michael said 120 of the 200 Merino rams sold to NSW clients, who were looking to breed an easy-care, plain-bodied, dual-purpose sheep. To back up the demand at the auction, Mr Michael said he sold another 120 rams privately the next day.

Mr Michael said, while he believed many of the buyers were not fussed about the mulesing issue, they were definitely looking for rams to ‘de-wrinkle’ their flocks. Leahcim has been very public on the mulesing issue.

“We stopped mulesing in 2004, not because of PETA but because we didn’t have to mules,” Mr Michael said. “If the world today said it didn’t mind mulesing, I still wouldn’t go back to it.”

He described as “sensational” the contract by JBS Australia for UK retailer Tesco to source only lambs from non-mulesed flocks because it would provide marketing opportunities for sheep breeders who had moved away from mulesing.

Three years ago, he estimated that ceasing mulesing had added $9.90 to the value of lamb because of reduced labour, less weight loss from the trauma of the operation and fewer chemicals. On the current values for lambs, Mr Michael said the savings would be considerably higher.

Leahcim joins a 2000-stud ewes plus its ewe lambs at seven months. On breech scores, he estimated only eight of this year’s rams would have been scored, on the scale 1-5, with a score of 2.

All the rest were score 1.

Murray Bridge sheep classer Bill Walker said the Wallaloo Park sale was a stunner.

“It epitomised what we are on this Earth for – to produce top-end fibre of market please carcasses.”

Mr Walker said many of the studs and commercial breeders from southeast NSW and western Victoria were now surpassing many of the traditional studs which he believed had been “loitering and generally hosting tired old fashioned enterprises”.

A TREND among Australian woolgrowers of incorrectly declaring their sheep as not mulesed was “innocent”, according to AWEX quality and technical manager Dr Kerry Hansford.

On-farm inspections by AWEX between September last year and June 2011 found that 15 per cent of declarations of non-mulesed (NM) or ceased mulesing (CM) status on the National Wool Declaration were non-compliant or incorrect.

But AWEX has found a similar trend of non-compliance has continued in 2011-2012, prompting advice to AWEX members and woolgrowers on the common errors being made. However, no grower has been found to have made the same consecutive error on an NWD, Ms Hansford said.

“For the most part we believe they are innocent errors where the grower gets poor advice or someone else completes the NWD form for them.

“They are totally shocked to find out that the wool went forward to sale with a declaration on it that was incorrect,” she said.

“By and large we certainly think it is not deliberate and we are treating this, as we did in the first year, as an education phase and making sure everybody knows what they should be doing before you come down really hard on someone.”

Ms Hansford said growers who were innocently non-compliant were told they could be subject to inspection if they made subsequent ceased mulesing or non-mulesed declarations.

“In addition to that if they do put forward a declaration for that next year we will check it in the office first to see what they have declared.

“We are certainly not trying to get them to stop declaring, we would just rather they declared correctly.”

The penalty for deliberate non-compliance or a consecutive error could be “that they won’t be able to declare in the future unless they undergo another inspection (at the grower’s cost) that proves they have stopped mulesing”, Ms Hansford said. Buyers and brokers were also notified of cases of incorrect NWDs or non-compliance.

Cases of non-compliant and incorrect declarations detected included:

The NWD was completed by a person other than the owner/manager (e.g. classer, broker, relative), with non-mulesed declared despite the mob being mulesed or containing mulesed sheep. It is the owner/manager’s responsibility to ensure the NWD is completed correctly.

The Mob Mulesed question was incorrectly answered “No”, when the mob contained older mulesed sheep. There is no “allowable” number of mulesed older sheep or strays in a non-mulesed mob. Sheep which have been subject to a mulesing operation, regardless of the amount of skin removed from the breech and/or side of the tail, must be declared as mulesed. Growers who have ceased mulesing on the property can answer ‘Yes’ to the Ceased Mulesing question, but the actual mulesing status of each mob must be correctly declared.

Purchased sheep were declared as non-mulesed; despite the mob being mulesed or containing mulesed sheep. Any mulesed “bought on” sheep must be declared as mulesed.

Some growers have also incorrectly made declarations, or signed NWDs, indicating that pain relief (PR) was used at mulesing. Pain relief was only commercially from 2005, therefore only sheep six years and younger are eligible.

WOOL is helping a leading American outdoor apparel retailer defy the downturn in the US economy.

“The downturn has affected all apparel retailers, although outdoor sales are less affected,” said Todd Copeland, of Californian outdoor and sportswear retailer Patagonia.

“With the downturn, we are finding customers are looking to make a better purchase.”

Mr Copeland has been visiting Australia to learn about the wool industry and to explain Patagonia’s business and its use of wool.

“We use all four fibres – cotton, polyester, wool and nylon. Wool is about a third of our business by volume, but wool is up there at the top for garment value,” he says.

Patagonia’s apparel appeals to a customer base that is attracted to a range of outdoor pursuits – skiing, walking, mountain climbing, bike riding, and surfing – and also has an affinity with environmental issues.

Patagonia uses wool from unmulesed Merinos, and uses chlorine-free processes. To ensure its wools and other fibres adhere to specifications, the company has supply arrangement and traceability systems back to the raw product’s source.

For its Australian wool, Patagonia uses e-wool’s New Merino supply arrangements. E-wool assembles the wool and organises its sale and processing right through to the fabric stage.

Mr Copeland said e-wool provided the traceability that his company needed to keep faith with its customers.

E-wool manager Peter Vandeleur said Patagonia’s business involved 334 bales of an average 18.9 micron from about 14 clips off unmulesed flocks. This wool is used in Patagonia’s latest range of T-shirts, which are made from an 80 per cent wool and 20 per cent polyester jersey knit.

Patagonia’s range, including the T-shirts, is now available at Torquay.

The NewMerino team at the Merino2020 conference, with woolgrowers sporting their base layer t-shirts, included from left in the rear, Bruce Taylor, Wellington; Patagonia’s Tom Copeland, Trina Weatherly, Streatham; Anna Brien, Wellington with e-wool’s Peter Vandeleur. In the front, from the left, are Bill Weatherly, Streatham; Norm Smith, Wellington; Hugh Taylor and Scott Brien, from Wellington.

FOR 40 years, Streatham woolgrower Bill and Trina Weatherly wanted to see what their wool could do.

The NewMerino® base layer T-shirt launched by Patagonia recently was the first time they had seen their wool taken right through to a garment.

“We are absolutely thrilled to see what it can do,” Mr Weatherly said when the Patagonia shirts were displayed at the Merino2020 conference at Wagga Wagga last week.

Mr Weatherly said they were pleased to sell their wool where feedback was given on the product it went into.

The Weatherlys stopped mulesing their SRS® blood fine wool sheep in 2007.

“I was very apprehensive when we made the choice to stop mulesing because we did it in one hit, but it has worked for us,” he said.

“The customer is right and there are a lot of customers who want this (unmulesed wool) so why should we argue with our customer instead of trying to deliver what they want?”

Mr Weatherly said the deal through e-wool and NewMerino® meant they were paid a premium for their wool for the first time in 40 years.

“I think the reward really should be in having that support for your product in the marketplace and having a door opened that wouldn’t be opened otherwise.

“That this wool can go into this market which is not available to wools that are mulesed, that’s the reward,” Mr Weatherly said.

“We’ve got another competitor for our product that we wouldn’t have had otherwise.”

Patagonia strategic environmental materials developer Todd Copeland said their was some doubt about whether there was enough unmulesed wool of the right quality for the base layer specifications. But e-wool® managing director Peter Vandeleur sourced 300 bales of specific quality wool for the NewMerino® garments from 14 mainly SRS woolgrowers in Victoria, New South Wales and Bruny Island, Tasmania.

“Some of them supplied as little as one line of wool, four or five bales and then you have people like the Weatherlys supplying 40-60 bales.

“We are blending, but blending from known farms where we know the attributes of the farms and their wool,” he said.

The wool had to be around 18.9 micron within a very tight fibre range and of a high comfort factor from unmulesed sheep with third party certification to meet the NewMerino® next-to-skin base layer requirements.

Mr Copeland said the NewMerino®wool was made into four different types of fabrics and 20 different styles for marketing into America, Japan and Europe.

“They have absolutely just hit the stores, but we have already done our sell-in to the retailers.

“The retailers were confident and made very good buys, which made us confident going into it up to a year that this was going to be a good program.”

Mr Copeland was confident the NewMerino®products would sell and Mr Vandeleur said the wool was available as long as there was reasonable lead time to match future Patagonia programs.

Rural Press   TERRY SIM  27 Aug, 2011

E-wool’s Peter Vandeleur, left, with Patagonia’s Todd Copeland with a NewMerino base-layer T-Shirt

OUTDOOR clothing company Patagonia gave its full support for wool traceability and unmulesed wool production at the Merino2020 conference in Wagga Wagga last week.

While outlining the development of the company’s NewMerino® base layer T-shirts from unmulesed Australian wool, Patagonia strategic environmental materials developer Todd Copeland said he knew there was an issue with mulesing.

“But I didn’t want to just take the advice of the radical groups that say “Just don’t buy wool from Australia.”

He also didn’t want to take a factory’s word that its wool was unmulesed, so there was a need for traceability.

Mr Copeland said the garments were launched in the Northern Hemisphere last month after two years of work with Peter Vandeleur owner of e-wool, NewMerino’s third party supply chain manager. Third party certification was important and all the wool used in the NewMerino® garments came from unmulesed clips with AWEX National Wool Declarations, he said.

“What we were looking with this sustainable wool supply chain was traceability to the growers.

“We wanted that story – we wanted that face up there.”

Mr Copeland said Patagonia also wanted to work with people who were doing adaptive management and progressive methods.

“That’s what we are doing, that’s what our textile mills are doing that’s what our cut and sew guys are doing, that’s what our farmers are doing.”

Mr Copeland said the opportunity with wool to say that woolgrowers protected and worked with natural systems in conserving grasslands could connect with consumers.

The outdoor enthusiast wanted to protect nature, was very closely aligned with the ethical consumer and would get grassland conservation, but didn’t understand farming, he said.

“So there is a disconnect between the way a farmer looks at a sheep and the way someone in New York City views it.

“There is a big disconnect, so animal welfare has changed to not just being cruel to not treating it like your pet,” he said.

Mr Copeland said the Patagonia website told its customers what was potentially bad with some products.

“Anytime we tell our customers what is potentially bad and where we could improve we actually win them over.

“They realise that we are not just telling them all the good, that we were trying to be balanced and they will trust us a little bit more.”

He gave an example of some shorts that were finished with a synthetic water repellent chemical, perfluorooctanoic acid or PFOA, that was persistent in the environment. The chemical use admission prompted a question from Gundagai wool grower Les Carr about whether mulesing could be seen as a good thing because it saved the lives of sheep from death by flystrike.

“It just seems a bit incongruous that on the one hand we can wear apparel that contains a chemical and then on the other hand we’ve got a proven thing that works better than almost anything else in terms of keeping the flies out of the sheep and it’s the enemy.”

Mr Copeland said he wasn’t saying that PFOA was good and the company was phasing its use out by 2013.

“So we can’t bring these issues up and educate our customers about the problems and then not fix them.

“I would be happy to put a video of mulesing on our website and explain to people that it is necessary, but I would also tell them that we were going to source all of our wool from some alternative option that is successful and works for farmers, by a certain date,” he said.

“So that’s the only type of traceability and transparency I can imagine putting on our website with regards to mulesing.”

Weekly Times   Brian Clancy

BRITISH retailers have denied they are going soft on their push against surgical mulesing. British Retail Consortium sustainability policy officer Catherine Pazderka said although the retailers were pushing for more transparency as to whether or not wool growers were still surgically mulesing their sheep, that was no indication British retailers were losing their resolve.

The ultimate goal of British retailers is to eradicate mulesing and this position will not change, nor will it soften over time,” Ms Pazderka told The Weekly Times this week.

“However, after missed deadlines and slow progress towards eradication, it is apparent that our message is not penetrating strongly enough to the farm level.

“Therefore, the emphasis on transparency and need for wool growers to sign up to the NWD (national wool declaration) was seen as a need to find a more effective mechanism to achieve eradication.”

Ms Pazderka said the development of transparency and traceability systems was the trend that retailers were seeing in other commodities such as palm oil and timber.

She said apparel members of the BRC were committed to sourcing wool and woollen products from farms where the highest animal welfare practices had been adopted to protect sheep from blowfly strike.

“The BRC recognises the very real threat that blowfly strike poses to sheep in countries like Australia, but the use of surgical mulesing, which causes pain and suffering to animals, is not acceptable to British retailers or their customers,” Ms Pazderka said.

She said the only acceptable long-term solution to surgical mulesing was through selective breeding.

“However, until such time as breeding programs take full effect, interim strategies such as integrated farm management practices and the use of intradermals must be adopted to reduce risk of flystrike,” Ms Pazderka said.

“Some retailers may, as a transitional arrangement, also accept wool from flocks where clips have been used.

“We acknowledge that the Australian wool industry has already taken a number of steps towards achieving this goal, but as of 2011, these efforts fall short of our requirements and customer expectations.”

The British Retail Consortium have indicated that they were misrepresented in the article written by Brian Clancy of the Weekly Times dated 11/8/2011.  Below is their stated policy.

British Retail Consortium (BRC) members are committed to sourcing wool and woollen products from farms where the highest animal welfare practices have been adopted to protect sheep from blowfly strike. The BRC recognises the very real threat that blowfly strike poses to sheep in countries like Australia but the use of surgical mulesing, which causes pain and suffering to animals, is not acceptable to British retailers or their customers.

As part of our wider sustainability agenda, BRC members aim to improve the welfare of all merino and fine wool producing animals by sourcing non-mulesed or ceased mulesed wool. After consulting with the RSPCA (UK), the body most trusted by UK consumers on animal welfare issues, the only acceptable long-term solution to surgical mulesing is through selective breeding. However, until such time as breeding programmes take full effect, interim strategies such as integrated farm management practices and the use of intradermals must be adopted to reduce risk of flystrike. Some retailers may, as a transitional arrangement, also accept wool from flocks where clips have been used.

We acknowledge that the Australian wool industry has already taken a number of steps towards achieving this goal but as of 2011, these efforts fall short of our requirements and customer expectations. To meet the demand for responsibly sourced products, the BRC requires changes and improvements in the following key areas:

1) Transparency in the supply chain: The BRC requires mandatory listing of all Australian wool through the National Wool Declaration (NWD), with the status of mulesing clearly listed on Australian Wool Testing Authority (AWTA) documents:

- Non-Mulesed (NM): none of the sheep in the flock have been mulesed;

- Ceased Mulesed (CM): the practice of mulesing is no longer carried out; and

- Pain Relief (PR): pain relief is applied to the sheep after mulesing has been carried out by

an accredited practitioner.

2) Eradication of surgical mulesing: BRC members aim to source wool from sheep that have

not been surgically mulesed, even under conditions of pain relief.

3) Alternative practices: The BRC welcomes continued investment into effective long-term

alternatives to surgical mulesing through selective breeding, in conjunction with the implementation of integrated farm management practices aimed to prevent and control blowfly strike in the absence of mulesing.

We hope this document helps provide the leadership needed for an industry consensus behind mandatory sign up to the NWD and the eradication of mulesing. To facilitate, the BRC will continue to work in close partnership with key stakeholders including Australian wool growers and their associations, as well as non-governmental organisations and government officials in the UK and Australia. Continual progress towards these goals is required to increase supply of assured high welfare status merino and fine wools and we look forward to future updates on these achievements.

Date: 3 May, 2011

Andrew Opie

Director of Food and Sustainability

BRITISH retailers are no longer telling Australian wool growers to stop mulesing.

But they want to be informed of what practices are being used on farms, in an effort to appease animal activist groups such as PETA.

In what appears to be a softening of the strong stance adopted by retailers six years ago, the British Retail Consortium – which represents most of UK’s largest and most influential retailers – wants to put the onus back on to farmers.

The BRC was instrumental in negotiating the now defunct 2010 deadline for the end of mulesing.

BRC sustainability policy officer Catherine Pazderka told The Weekly Times the mulesing issue was just one of several animal welfare and environmental battles affecting food, furnishing and apparel retailers.

Ms Pazderka said the list included cotton and child labour; palm oil and orangutangs; fur and harp seals; furniture and rainforests; fishing and deep-sea trawling.

Ms Pazderka said retailers no longer used the terminology “corporate social responsibility” but would rather be seen as retailers caring for the environment, animal welfare and fair trade issues.

She agreed the mulesing issue was currently relatively quiet.

“But it is an issue which can flare at any time,” she said.

“Images of mulesing can go very ‘tabloidy’ for a week over here and of course the retailers get very nervous.”

Ms Pazderka said retailers wanted to be able to back up claims that their product was made from wool from non-mulesed sheep.

“But without transparency through the wool pipeline it is very difficult to justify their claims,” she said.

“That is why we are calling for more transparency and use of the National Wool Declaration.”

Ms Pazderka said it was hard to estimate how many consumers were really concerned about animal welfare and environment issues.

But there were many consumers who would buy from a particular retailer if they knew that retailer was trying to do the right thing.

She said there were those retailers who see a marketing advantage in promoting their credentials on animal welfare and environmental issues.