Flocking Back To Wool

When our Test cricketers run onto the pitch they wear wool grown in the Flinders Ranges of South Australia. The region’s hardy flocks and their enterprising producers provide a neat snapshot of today’s Australian wool industry.

- Amanda Burdon

IN THE STONY COUNTRY east of Jamestown, in southern South Australia, sheep paddocks are as big as skies. It’s dry here, beyond Goyder’s Line, which indicates reliable rainfall and separates cropping and grazing lands.

Summer is bearing down, forcing Geoff Power to begin hand-feeding the 3000 sheep on his 5040ha property, Sambas. “They’re all on natural pastures,” he says, “but we got no winter rain and the kangaroos have been killing us.”

In an industry steeped in tradition, Geoff is something of a stray. He grew up in Melbourne, with no farm experience or wool connections. “It was always my dream, ever since I was a little fella, to grow wool,” he says. “It’s taken 50 years to get to where we are today, slowly accumulating land and sheep. It’s a challenge when the weather is out of your control, dogs are on the prowl, there are animal welfare issues to deal with and fashions change 16 times a year. But I love sheep and wool is such a versatile product.”

Even Geoff ’s dedication, though, was tested by the Millennium Drought, which lasted from 2001 to 2009. With wool prices flat-lining and sheep carcasses worth little more, he decided something had to change. The wool that other Flinders Ranges growers were producing was clean and green, yet synthetic fibres had a stranglehold on the textiles industry internationally.

“At the end of the day, wool is a commodity and we needed to find a point of difference,” says Geoff, the former president of livestock SA. “For us, that was where and how we grow that wool in an ethical and sustainable manner.”