Wellington
It could be wool's last hurrah, it could be the start of a whole new ball game.
The government's recent decision to invest $17.25 million in a wool research consortium willallow the exploration of possible new products and applications for the fibre and its rawconstituent, keratin.
Wool is now lucky to cover the cost of getting it off a ewe's back for some farmers, so it is notsurprising that last year's vote by cockies was to essentially forget about thefibre.
Using counter-intuitive logic, now's probably a good time to explore new uses andopportunities.
After all, wool's back story is pretty difficult to beat - there's not many products that canclaim to be created by sunshine, soil and fresh air (only a slight exaggeration!).
Compared to the hydrocarbon-derived alternatives, there's a whole romance that can be laidalongside its physical properties - which are sure to be re-examined closely by more than 20fulltime scientists at AgResearch's Lincoln campus.
The CRI's pretty confident (as you would be having just secured investment!) it has some woollyanswers, namely:
•Addressing historical obstacles to wool's use and performance. It can produce woollen fabricswhich perform as well as, if not better than synthetics in many respects.
•Finding new addedvalue uses that exploit positive intrinsic characteristics
Let's hope AgResearch is right. Wool in total makes up less than 2% of the total fibre globallyproduced.
AgResearch's Wool Research Organisation Inc (WRInc) will work alongside universities and otherresearch organisations it says. Collaboration's the big new, brave new concept in New Zealandresearch - from the top down. It will be interesting to see how it pans out in reality.
Because the processes involved in taking the raw wool off a sheep's back and turning that into ayarn which in turn is used in carpets or clothing is long and relatively expensive.
The majority of the wool New Zealand produces is coarser than the fine merino fabricsenthusiastically worn by urban-trampers. Our sensitive 21st century skins aren't keen on the pricklefactor inherent in coarse wool blends.
Finding a way to utilise these types of wools, in ways other than carpet, is the challenge in thefirst instance.
Finding a way to get consumers to either happily pay more for a wool product (with presumablybetter characteristics than a cheaper, synthetic product) and getting some of that profit back downthe value chain to the farmer's going to be a another major challenge.
But, as a renewable, raw resource, we owe it to ourselves, our forebears and our farmers to givewool research one last crack.
Any later and the scientists capable to passing on their wool knowledge to their youngercolleagues, will be gone.
Any later and there will be no one left in the country who remembers the fibre at all.
AgResearch has a pretty good public relations team, well-versed at promoting good news.
One of wool's advantages is that it will lend itself to picture-worthy stories of the 'look whatwe've discovered' variety. It isn't something buried down a microscope, all big-pictureenvironmental, or gene-manipulation, 20 years down the track type of story.
There will be some interesting new products pumped out by the big dollop of cash being thrown atdiscovery and refinement.
Producing these new products will be the easy part though. Convincing others to tool up and helptake the products to market will be the real trick.
Disclaimer : in a former life, sticK attempted to commercialise a felted woolball (based on simple technology perfected by the old WRONZ (Wool Research Organisation of NZ). Theball is pretty round, bounces and is a great colourful indoor ball, perfect for office games ofcricket. It accepts a permanent logo too.
sticK couldn't get it into a form or product that tourists were prepared to purchase however. Anyperson who thinks they might have a market for such a ball, give me a yell!