U.K. Wool Board rep.

Press, 1 May 1981, Page 16

U.K. Wool Board rep.

When the countries which produce wool were reporting to the statistics committee of the conference of the International Wool Textile Organisation in Christchurch this week it was a former New Zealander who appeared before the committee for the British Wool Marketing Board, which acquires all of the wool grown on farms in the United Kingdom and markets it. .

He is Mr W. B. (Brian) Dunn, managing director of the board, a position he has held for about the last six years.

Although his home area used to be Taihape in the North Island, he said this week that it also felt like coming home being in Christchurch. for he spent four years studying at Canterbury College for an engineering degree during World War 11.

He has been away from his home country for quite a while now. For six or seven years he was production manager for Jaguar cars and then, managing director for Rovai Worcester (in the fine china world) for about seven years.. Mr Dunn said that he did not find it at all strange

being the chief executive of the British Wool Marketing Board.

He likes living in England and describes himself as very much of an Anglophile by now. He also has a major interest in marketing and also an interest in farming and (he farming community, which probably goes back to his New Zealand background having lived in a farming community. "I think it is perfectly natural that I should be dealing with a farming product, 1 ' he says.

With him this week has been the chairman of the British board, Mr Walter Elliot.

Referring to the fact that there is total. acquisition of the woolclip in Britain, he says that this arrangement has. to be seen in the perspective of the wool industry in the country. The board has about 90.000 farmer suppliers whose average clip is only 450 kg. Mr Elliot says that with anything less than this scheme the small producer would not be ble to get a fair price for his commodity. He cites the case where last year in the Republic of Ireland, where they have no such scheme to

handle wool, 40 per cent of the producers were left with their wool on their hands. The board sorts the small producers' wool into appropriate lots suitable for sale.

Mr Elliot says that it is absolutely first class from the farmers' point of view and buyers also like it too. The wool properly sorted into the various types and sorts is available throughout the year and buyers knowing what is available are able to plan accordingly.

They do not have to slock up ahead because they may not be able to get a particular type sometime in the future. This is, of course, an important consideration in these days of high interest rates and dear money. There are incidentally 39 pure breeds of sheep in Britain and the wool is sorted into over 200 grades. Mr Dunn says that the scheme has the complete support of farmers. When a vote was taken in 1949 93 per cent voted in favour of acquisition. One thing that he has noticed is that compared with other wool boards the British board takes a more active part in the trade. He observes that 75 per cent of the British wool textile industry is located within a radius of 20 miles of his office. '