 Funding Approved for Great New Zealand Sheep Revolution
(New Zealand) - May 2010
The New Zealand Merino Company (NZM) has announced a NZ$36 million strategy to grow the country’s fine wool sector over the next five years. In collaboration with its supply-chain partners, NZM will contribute NZ$21 million, with another NZ$15 million coming from the Government’s first allocation of funding through the Primary Growth Partnership – an initiative that will invest in significant programmes of research and innovation to boost the economic growth of New Zealand’s primary, forestry and food sectors.
With demand for New Zealand fine wools now outweighing supply, spurred on by partnerships in active-outdoors markets with companies like Icebreaker and U.S-based SmartWool, NZM has resisted the urge to procure offshore and is instead looking to grow local supply.
NZM will roll out an integrated strategy involving science, technology and global market solutions, which will not only see wool being grown for specific markets, but also include other income streams for New Zealand sheep farmers, such as meat, lanolin and leather goods. The focus will be on productivity gains and production shifts to meet additional demand; the details of which will be discussed in a series of grower meetings in mid-June.
“The New Zealand primary industry has huge untapped potential. We have world class production science agencies such as AgResearch and we have highly professional farming producers, but the missing link for the broader New Zealand primary sector has been a sophisticated market interface,” says John Brakenridge, chief executive of NZM.
“New Zealand merino growers have been proactive in recognising the need for innovation and change in their industry, as well as the need for investment in marketing and differentiation of their unique product, but there is so much more we can do.”
Previously known as Merino New Zealand, NZM is an integrated sales and marketing business. It currently administers the sale of NZ$105 million in fibre, which represents 80 percent of New Zealand merino and 50 percent of the country’s mid-micron clip by value.
The new strategy will foster greater synergies with government agencies, such as the Foundation for Research, Science & Technology and New Zealand Trade & Enterprise. It will also build on international networks, such as that with Stanford University in the U.S, with three students from the institute’s business school already completing their international study at NZM.
“This is just one of the relationships that NZM is building with Stanford to ensure that we’re at the forefront of international marketing, technology and design,” says Brakenridge. “The New Zealand sheep industry is an icon that has been languishing in exile, overshadowed by our black and white friends. But, watch this space.”
Image: Dreamstime.com
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