Mohair gains momentum, or is it cashgora?

Press, 5 December 1986, Page 26

Mohair gains momentum, or is it cashgora?

By

HUGH STRINGLEMAN

Like many rapidly growing adolescents, the New Zealand goat fibre industry has an identity crisis. Charging up and down New Zealand during the past two weeks have been 10 national officials from the mohair side with “Mohair gaining momentum” seminar series. But is it mohair that they were pushing and that New Zealand really needs much more of, or cashgora, or cashmere? Cashgora is the goat fibre between mohair and cashmere.

More than 4000 breeders are now registered with either the Mohair Producers’ Association or the Cashmere Producers’ Association but most of them are producing cashgora at the moment. So is it the diamond fibre (mohair) or the finest fibre (cashmere) which is the big hope for the future? Or is the only

new specialty fibre to be accepted in the last 100 years (cashgora) or even the fibre closest to heaven, or some such extravagantly described fibre not yet in New Zealand?

Mr Ross Moorhouse, a M.A.F. goat adviser and council member of the Mohair Producers’ Association has fortunately come up with a way out of incipient schizophrenia.

He believes that it will be possible to stabilise the cashgora-producing goat and that it will become the third major fibre goat class, or breed. New Zealand leads the way in cashgora development and production, he told the seminar audiences. This strictly defined fibre, between 18 and 22 microns with a low lustre, has now been for-

ward sold to major Northern Hemisphere purchasers.

The cashgora B section of the market has been sold at $22 a kg, which is about the average return for good mohair but over $lO a kg less than cashmere.

But the challenge ahead of the cashgora specialists, according to Mr Moorhouse, is to bring together the high yield of Angoras with the down production of cashmere goats and then fix or stabilise this production in successive generations. Cashgora is not coarse cashmere, but has characteristics of mohair which make it distinct from cashmere.

Cashgora is 60 to 90mm and can be used in woollen and worsted manufacturing systems.

Guard hairs have to be taken out and thrown away during processing and it must in the interests of cashgora breeders to maximise yield, he said. With cashgora A bringing nearly $lOO a kg of down, a goat producing more than 500 g annually of 80 or 90 per cent down could be returning over $4O from fibre. “Be confident,” he said, “and get out there and produce cashgora. “I don’t believe it is just a passing phase.” By putting Angoras over cashmere-type goats, much greater weights or yields of down fibre can be produced, he said. An example was the Russian crossbreeding of Turkish Angoras with the indigenous feral goats to get a high-yielding, down producer.

New Zealand also had a successful record of stabilising fine and coarse wool crossbreds in sheep; for example the Corriedale, Coopworth and Perendale.

Once this objective had been set in cashgoras, breeders could dispose of Angora throwbacks to mohair producers who were still intent on upgrading. Anything that threw to the fine end could be marketed through the cashmere system. But a realistic objective would be to produce kids which clipped below 18 micron and adults which fell into the 18 to 22 micron range, or the cashgora, Mr Moorhouse said.

If all this is confusing, perhaps you might join the move towards making the goat fibre industry one, in the spirit of unity which seems to feature so often in the speeches of the Mohair Producers’ president, Mr Richard Macdonald.

The breeders’ magazine “Mohair News” has now officially adopted a split personality as the journal

of mohair and cashmere producers’ organisations. The offiqe staff for both organisations could amalgamate in future, believes

Mr Macdonald, and plenty of co-operation is being shown through the Goat Fibre Marketing Committee.

With 18 seminars throughout New Zealand in less than two weeks, Mr Macdonald and his team certainly still have the right foot flat to the floor in industry development.

Phrases like “totally secure” and “unlimited potential” were peppered through the speeches. The paper shufflers north of the Bombay Hills were caustically referred to more then once as being engaged in an illusory, non-productive game in “plastic buildings.”

In the real world of goat development, speculators had been banned by Sir Robert Muldoon and investors killed off by Roger Douglas, so M.O.P.A.N.Z. was courting “portfolio holders.’”

They came in their hundreds to the seminar series: up to two-thirds at each venue were new faces to the producers’ association reps.

“For those of you playing the fickle sharemarket, I suggest you spread your investment into a real growth industry,” said Mr Macdonald.

“We need hundreds of thousands more goats on the ground.

“We also need a veterinary industry which is prepared to do embryo transfer work for not much more than $65 a kid, as it is being done in Australia.

“For those of you already in Angoras, my challenge is for you to buy, not sell, in the forthcoming sale season.”

Large numbers of Angoras are scheduled for sales during December and January as the result of the first big wave of embryo transfer work. Buck kids, in particular, are expected to be in over-supply.

Mr Macdonald also had some harsh words for breeders who wanted to turn out “fashionable” Angoras, with fibre over the faces and down the hocks.

“We need commercial animals with clean faces that can see where they are going,” he said.

New developments in the industry include buck testing at M.A.F. Whatawhata, artificial insemination programmes by Genestock and Ambreed and central progeny performance schemes being established.

The supervisor of the marketing warehouse, Mr John Woodward, emphasised the strict quality control which had created a demand for New Zealand fibre over and above the demand for goat fibres world wide.

“Buyers can be assured of what they are paying for and that the qualities will be consistent,” he said.