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fuel costs to the given
British Wool depots. Many farmers were forced to discard their wool by storing it away, composting, or through more dramatic methods such as burning. This left farmers only having to cover shearing expenses, as it is still necessary to sheer the sheep for their health and well-being (so they do not suffer from blowfly strike, which causes maggots). The wool predicament leads to the farmers growing concern about the British Wool Board policy. Some farmers feeling the organisation has been too focused on the Chinese market and missed out on establishing connections with substitute markets, alternative supply chains and creating more consumer demand.
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68:, when farmers were trying to sell their wool on an open market. The system was described as being "chaotic and discriminatory". According to British Wool, there were between 40,000 and 46,000 registered producers in 2015. The number of producers has been falling; in 1995 it was 91,000, by 2012 it was 75,000. This has also been in line with the number of sheep available; in 1990 there were 65 million sheep for wool farming, by 2012 this had fallen to 40 million.
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due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which made it impossible to sell all of the years produced crop. As a result, extensive amounts of unsold wool are stored in depots, causing prices of wool to plummet. A 14 million kg backlog is waiting to be cleared by the board, while the average price per kg has virtually halved from the previous year’s 60p to 32p. Further reasons for current decline in wool prices are Brexit uncertainty and the US-China trade war.
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The situation had dramatic effects for sheep farmers across the UK. Farmers lost money through selling their product, as the costs that came with shearing and selling the wool outweighed any profits. Particularly for remote farms, where the asking price for wool was worth less than transportation and
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The growth in use of synthetic fibres, coupled with the introduction of US imports and fewer players in the wool industry’s supply chain have led to the regression, since the 1950s, of the
British wool industry and its products popularity. The global wool market was forced to shut in February 2020
45:-run organisation, British Wool was established in 1950 with the aim of achieving the best possible net return for producers. It is the only organisation in the world that collects, grades, sells and promotes fleece wool and is the only remaining agricultural commodity board in the
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Receiving no financial support, although operating commercially. British Wool is a non-profit-making organisation, returning to producers the market price for their wool, with its own costs deducted.
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British Wool collects, grades and auctions all types of
British sheep wool on behalf of British sheep farmers.
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British Wool is required to register all producers with four or more sheep with the exception of producers in
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339:"British Wool: a thriving industry, thanks to running the last marketing board in the country"
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The board of nine elected producer members, representing nine different areas of the
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264:"The changing face of the British Wool Marketing Board - The Journal"
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Day-to-day operations are run from
British Wool's headquarters in
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162:"Bradford wool centre that's the only one like it in the world"
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132:"Walsh hits out as wool board spends £50,000 on detectives"
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369:"Coronavirus: Sheep wool 'barely worth selling any more'"
395:"Reports from Devon that sheep farmers are burning wool"
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Agricultural organisations based in the United
Kingdom
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213:"Commodities: Merchant challenges wool board"
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187:"Wool Marketing Board registration"
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302:Wool: science and technology
166:Bradford Telegraph and Argus
31:British Wool Marketing Board
22:British Wool logo used as a
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424:Roche, Julian (1995).
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268:The Journal
39:fleece wool
24:servicemark
468:Categories
399:Lisa Young
325:Roche 1995
288:Roche 1995
238:"About Us"
118:References
405:23 April
379:23 April
91:Scotland
83:Bradford
62:Shetland
418:Sources
348:1 April
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191:gov.uk
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