GIFT Workshop

This weekend, we had a very successful GIFT workshop held here.
All Partisicpants walked away full of knowledge, and said it was well worth coming to listen.Listening to Paul, I always learn something more.
His knowledge of Ultrafine and Superfine wool production is endless.
As alpaca breeders we need to tap into these first hand experiences of sheep breeding and learn by their gains, and their mistakes.
As one lady said, well they have been breeding sheep for over 200 years (in Australia), but if you look at the mistakes that the sheep industry have made ovber the past century, it really has been only about the last 20 years, have they made significant advancement, and that has largely been due to research, data, and technology, and then taking these tools, and using them.
Trials have also been perfected, where by using data, and technology, on sample groups under the same conditions, and comparing to those that were unimproved by the latest technology, the gains have been significant, and fast.
Not all the sheep industry is breeding and using these latest technologies, and those are earning bottom dollars for their fleeces, where some figures that were given to us, March 2008, prior to the commodity collapse,
$982 a kilo was paid for fleece 13 micron (sheep), alpaca, this would eqate to approx 16-17 micron, which we area ll breeding. Currently ultrafine fleeces are not being sold, until the marketplace picks up, due to the world financial market place, as the people who buy this fleece, are the hardest hit by the world financial market, but already, the demand is starting, and then once the world economy is on full track, those prices will again reach these high points.
Why?
Because, with synthetics, which is wool's main competition, they cannot reproduce Ultrafine and superfine, it can only be supplied by natural fibres.
I pointed out that we at Mariah hill produced over 1000 kilos last year.
If for instance all the fleece wa ultrafine, the potential is $982,000 almost $1Million can be earnt by fleece alone.
Lets say that is so ambitious.
So maybe half of the 1000kilos was ultrafine, that is almost $1/5 million in fleece returns.
Lets be less ambitious, and say they were only paying half as much for my 500 kilos of ultrafine, that would still be $1/4 million.
the potential for ultrafine fleece, is where this industry must go.