Reports worry woolbuyers

Press, 3 February 1982, Page 2

Reports worry woolbuyers

The Woolbuyers’ Association is worried about recent reports on the alleged lack of value and possible dumping of Wool Board stocks of wool and the unsettling effect such reports could have on an already hesitant world market. Mr M. E. Moss, president of the' Woolbuyers’ Association, said yesterday it could be admitted that there was a lesser demand for the shorter, poorer end of the national wool clip because of demand for better quality for modern processing machinery. “But a contributing factor in the building up of the

present large proportion of these wools in the Wool Board stockpile has been the price at which the board has continued to take them off the market, without apparently allowing them to find their own level,” he said. The price range at which these shorter and poorer wools would find markets was, to some extent, unknown, because of the Wool Board support. “The buyers are also concerned about the present decline in the standard of preparation,” said Mr Moss. “While some of this may be seasonal there would appear to be too many short

cuts being taken in the shearing sheds, with a subsequent drop in the quality of wools coming forward to auction. He said good quality wools had decreased and the detrimental effect that this could have on overseas customers and for local manufacturers had yet to be felt. The comments from the chairman of the woolbuyers’ association follow statements from the Minister of Agriculture (Mr Maclntyre) and the chairman of the Wool Board, Mr Doug Mcliraith, that the board was buying short and inferior wool which has virtually no market overseas

and may be dumped eventually. Mr Mcliraith has said that one of the reasons for this was that farmers were shearing as much as possible to cash in on Governmentguaranteed wool prices which were well above market prices. At an Auckland wool sale last Friday the board had to take more than 56 per cent of the 33,000 bales offered. The board’s stockpile is now 400,000 bales and the total amount of subsidies paid to farmers during this wool selling .season under the supplementary minimum price scheme is almost $lOO million. Mr Maclntyre has raised the possibility of the Government and Wool Board mounting a campaign to stop farmers sending so much short wool to be sold and adjusting the price support scheme to pay less for short inferior wool.