Module 2: Market focused wool production

Overview

Successfully producing and marketing wool can be one of the most challenging but rewarding roles for a sheep producer. Taking a market focus to production is the basis for planning and operation within the wool enterprise, better management of price risk, selling to advantage and improved profitability.

MMFS Module 2 Market Focused Wool Production provides background to wool enterprise planning and is designed to assist with on-farm decision making, no matter what production and marketing processes are used. It firstly describes the influence of fibre characterisation on price, then presents options for estimating wool value and finally offers a range of selling options. These are the three procedures that form the basis for decision making in wool production, harvesting and marketing.

Learning outcomes

On completing this module, you should be able to:

describe the wool pipeline and outline the factors that influence demand and how they affect wool price
outline the important physical characteristics that influence price of wool at sale
list a range of information sources to monitor the wool market
explain the objectives of the AWEX Code of Practice for wool classers in terms of the Australian wool clip
explain what is meant by the term ‘credentialled wool products’ and outline the market advantages of growing credentialled wool
outline the key wool-selling systems available to Australian woolgrowers.