Non-mulesed accreditation is a stepping stone to qualification of various quality schemes, which in turn are stepping stones to premiums in the greasy wool market for both merino and crossbred wool. This article takes a look at declaration levels by breed and state for the 12 months to May.
With the increasing proportion of crossbred wool sold at auction, the importance of splitting auction data by breed grows. With this in mind, Figure 1 shows the split of mules declarations for the past 12 months for merino wool (Figure 3 shows the same for crossbred wool). The combined proportion of CM and NM merino wool was 18%. Some 49% of merino wool was declared as using pain relief (AA), 3.9% was declared as mulesed, and 30% of the merino clip had no declaration. Mecardo last looked at the progress in non-mulesed volumes and the different adoption across micron categories in September 2022 (see article here). At that time, the proportion of CM-NM merino wool was 14-15%, so the proportion has increased by around 3% during the past three years.
Figure 2 looks at the merino proportion of non-mulesed wool by state for the past 12 months. For each state, the level of non-mulesed wool is shown in the larger font (for example some 51% of Tasmanian merino wool sold in the past 12 months was non-mulesed). The size of the circle reflects the proportion of Australian merino sales were accounted for by each state (for example, NSW accounted for 41.2% of merino sales).
The top two states with merino clips for non-mulesed wool (by proportion) were Tasmania, followed by Queensland. A natural rejoinder to this observation is to point out that these states only represent 6% of the Merino clip between them. However, their non-mulesed levels are over double that of NSW and Victoria, and the different climates of Queensland and Tasmania indicate there are some lessons to be learnt about adapting to non-mulesed sheep.
Figure 3 shows the breakup of crossbred wool sold during the past year by mules declaration. 40% of crossbred wool was declared CM-NM, with a significant 48% share remaining undeclared. Figure 4 shows the state breakup for non-mulesed crossbred wool. Queensland leads, with effectively no crossbred wool (0.2% of sales). Tasmania, with 5.3% of crossbred sales, comes in second, with 60% non-mulesed. NSW, the largest crossbred wool producer with 44.7% of sales, comes in third with 46% declared as CM-NM.
One of the strengths of the Australian Commonwealth is the opportunity to trial different policies at the state level. Along these lines, the differing levels of CM-NM wool between the states (or regions) offer some opportunities to understand why this is occurring and perhaps provide useful advice to states/regions that are lagging.
What does it mean?
The rate of increase in CM-NM declared wool has been slow in recent years and remains at low levels (below 20% overall) for merino wool. When viewed across states/regions, the proportion of non-mulesed wool varies greatly. The question remains, do regions with much higher levels of non-mulesed wool offer lessons to those with lower adoption?”
Key Points
- Queensland and Tasmania lead the way in terms of non-mulesed wool for both merino and crossbred.
- For the Australian merino clip, the proportion of CM-Nm has increased by around a slow 3% during the past three years.
Click on figure to expand
Click on figure to expand
Click on figure to expand
Click on figure to expand
Data sources: AWEX, ICS, Mecardo
