Wool industry questions flock move

WOOL industry groups have heaped pressure on Australian Wool Innovation to reverse its decision to withdraw funding support for the Information Nucleus Flock program...

AWGA congratulates The Hon Niall Blair for supporting Sydney wool blanket campaign for homeless

In a recent speech to the NSW Parliament, The Hon Niall Blair highlighted the need to raise awareness of people who sleep on the streets of our capital cities. He particularly mentioned his support for young Sydney film maker, Hayley Olsson, who is in the process of making a film to raise awareness of homelessness, by raising funds to purchase wool blankets for those on our city streets this winter...

AWI still deciding how to splash the cash

Australian Wool Innovation has lots of extra cash this year because of the higher wool price, but says it's still working out how to spend it. One grower group wants to pay AWI less in compulsory levies, which are spent on marketing and research...

Ditch AWI: Massy

WOOLGROWERS would be better served by more smaller grower groups focused on innovative marketing rather than a blanket approach from a large statutory body like AWI, says stud breeder and author Charles Massy...

AWI Refuses to Fund Sheep Genetics Program

Sheep researchers say merino breeders will miss out on financial gains, if ongoing research is not funded. The genetic measurements of traits in meat and wool are now available, at a fee, from the Sheep Genetics program developed by a co-operative research centre...

AWGA Call For WoolPoll Info

THE Australian Wool Growers Association (AWGA) is calling for Australian Wool Innovation (AWI) to immediately release its three-year spending projections to give farmers ample time to make an informed decision on which levy rate to support in WoolPoll...

Should wool growers pay lower levies, as revenue rolls in to AWI?

The wool industry's marketing and research company Australian Wool Innovation is sitting on a proverbial goldmine. High wool prices mean farmers are paying more wool levies than expected to AWI, and its cash stockpile is growing every week...

Activists Protest Treatment of Sheep

An animal rights group has renewed calls to end the industry practice of stripping skin from sheep, with a protest in Brisbane. Activists from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Asia Pacific, dressed as sheep, braved rain in the city's main square on Saturday to speak out against sheep mulesing...

Food of Ethical Standards

The recent film Margin Call provides a fascinating insight into the 24-hour period at the commencement of the global financial crisis (GFC) in 2008, when a junior analyst first identified the excessive exposure of a major firm to the "toxic assets" that precipitated the financial disaster that still concerns the world economy...

Tax System is Intruding too much into our lives

INTRODUCED in 1696 and repealed in 1851, successive British governments supported a window tax on housing. Such stupid tax impositions have not gone away and the consequences of such ideologies that are the basis for raising more tax has never been more evident...

News - Growers Called to Vote

WOOLGROWERS will get the chance to decide what levy rate they pay when the 2012 WoolPoll vote is held later this year. The WoolPoll panel met for the first time on Monday, deciding that the proposed levy rates to be voted on would be the same options as offered in 2009. These include no levy, 1 per cent, 2pc, 2.5pc and 3pc...

Great Southern and South West Rural Report

WoolPoll levies may miss mark for Austalia's woolgrowers, south-west vintage set to be a corker, wool sales firm slightly in West and top honour for Kondinin agricultural graduate. WoolPoll levies may miss mark for Austalia's woolgrowers...

WoolPoll Panel Set for Levy Debate

AUSTRALIAN Wool Innovation (AWI) says it would be welcoming debate on the wool levy as attention begins to focus on November's WoolPoll.
The Australian Woolgrowers Association (AWGA) made it clear at last week's Wagin Woolorama that it would be pushing the case for a levy reduction this year...

News - Media Release

The Australian Wool Growers Association (AWGA) is calling for a reduction in the compulsory wool levy to 1.5% at WoolPoll 2012 in November. As part of the three yearly Woolpoll process woolgrower representatives have been asked to liaise closely with their membership base...

Number's up for wool sales

WOOL GROWERS are playing a numbers game in the auctions. Three weeks ago, AWEX's Eastern Market Indicator shot up 50c/kg to 1243c/kg clean, which triggered over the past fortnight a rush to sell more wool...