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| Blaine County Extension agent Mike Schuldt and wool buyer Carrie Little at the Eastern Montana Wool Pool collection site in Jordan. |
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BOZEMAN--Marketing wool in Montana has become more lucrative for many producers this year due to an improved market and a marketing effort spearheaded by the Montana State University Extension Service.
In the recent past, many factors contributed to a declining wool market, including a strong U.S. dollar, artificial fibers and loss of wool processing facilities. However, many of these negative market forces were offset in 2002 by the depletion of the Australian wool stockpile and the decreasing value of the U.S. dollar.
For years, wool marketing “pools” have helped producers by combining wool from many growers and selling it as one lot. But some of the pools have shrunk so much that they’re collecting less than a truckload.
Extension agents Marko Manoukian (Phillips County) and Mike Schuldt (Blaine County) saw this as an opportunity and, along with wool growers and pool managers, developed the Eastern Montana Consolidated Wool Pool Market. The project effectively combines the marketing efforts of seven small wool pools into one.
Assisted by a $15,000 Department of Agriculture grant, the Consolidated Pool, which began last fall, collected and sorted 209,000 pounds of wool from 139 producers in the participating pools and delivered it to a warehouse in Jordan. With the loan of a wool baler from the American Sheep Industry and the Montana Wool Growers Association, the team condensed over 900 bags of wool into 530, a large enough volume to decrease transportation costs and attract more buyers.
All in all, the project involved Extension agents and producers from Blaine, Daniels, Dawson, Garfield, McCone, Phillips, Richland, Sheridan, Valley and Wibaux Counties in Montana as well as woolgrowers from Golden Valley County and McKenzie County in North Dakota.
“The fact that we can put together whole truckloads of wool of the same type and quality increases the value of the wool to the buyer,” said Schuldt. “They can bid on only the type of wool they need for their market.”
Sorting by quality “is an incentive for people to develop better-quality wool,” Manoukian said. When growers sell individually or in a small pool, high-quality wool is sometimes packaged with lower-quality wool, which then sells at the price of the lowest-quality wool in the bale. The agents said the project also offers an opportunity to educate growers about flock management decisions that could affect quality.
It’s difficult to measure whether the consolidated pool brought in more profit, Manoukian said, because the market is in constant flux. However, he said that bid prices from the consolidated pool were 10 to 20 percent higher than comparable individual pool sales this year.
Leo Barthelmess, a Hi-Line Wool Pool director who raises sheep near Malta, said the consolidated pool, in addition to the potential for profit, “built a little enthusiasm back into the wool growers. The newer system gives people an incentive to move up.”
He said the Extension network was key to starting the project, crediting Schuldt, Manoukian and Extension sheep specialist Rodney Kott. “This would have gone nowhere without Extension. They have the connections. They are tremendous assets to the industry.”
The project will continue next year, and 96 percent of the growers said they would participate again.
“Please keep this thing going,” wrote one producer on an evaluation survey. “This was a big step in wool marketing.”
Contact: Marko Manoukian, Phillips County Extension Agent (Malta): 654-2543 or Mike Schuldt, Blaine County Extension Agent (Chinook): 357-3200
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| [View or Download] | 1. | Blaine County Extension agent Mike Schuldt and wool buyer Carrie Little at the Eastern Montana Wool Pool collection site in Jordan. |
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