WESTERN Australian wools would be more marketable, particularly to Italian fabric makers, if more WA woolgrowers joined the SustainaWOOL integrity scheme administered by the Australian Wool Exchange (AWEX).
That is the view of Western District, Victoria, Merino breeder and innovative woolgrower, sustainability, farm safety and animal welfare campaigner and researcher and honorary SustainaWOOL ambassador Michael Blake, who recently visited the Western Wool Centre promoting the three-tiered scheme.
Like Responsible Wool Standard (RWS) and other commercial integrity schemes offered via wool brokers, the SustainaWOOL scheme requires minimum internationally accepted standards for animal welfare and sustainable farm stewardship, including land, chemical occupational health and safety management and competent record keeping, Mr Blake said.
It also defined standards for wool harvesting, clip preparation and bale traceability back to farm and sheep mob, the 2019 Australian Wool Medal recipient said.
But there are important differences for woolgrowers in choosing AWEX's SustainaWOOL over other integrity schemes, he said.
"SustainaWOOL was developed in Australia by a farmer for Australian farmers," said Mr Blake, who has travelled the world visiting wool processors advocating for Australian woolgrowers who use the national wool declaration to indicate ceased mulesing or non-mulesing flock status and, more recently, promoting SustainaWOOL certification to them.
"The other integrity schemes have been developed from the other end - by the money makers - and you (woolgrowers) have to pay somewhere along the line to participate.
"With SustainaWOOL, the three tiers means woolgrowers can come in at any level that suits their operation.
"Certification under the blue and green tiers is free - only woolgrowers who are accredited as gold members have to pay."
SustainaWOOL blue requires woolgrowers who elect not to have an annual farm inspection, to agree to operate by set standards for animal welfare, sustainability and wool quality, but allows for lamb breech modification with pain relief and pain relief is recommended for tail docking and castration.
SustainaWOOL green is essentially the same as SustainaWOOL blue, but for woolgrowers who have ceased mulesing or whose flocks are non-mulesed.
SustainaWOOL Gold accreditation requires higher standards, including an annual farm inspection, breech modification is not allowed and pain relief is mandatory for tail docking and castration.
There is also a social responsibility requirement for SustainaWOOL gold members related to staff training and other safety and land care aspects.
Each SustainaWOOL member receives a bale stencil indicating their tier level.
SustainaWOOL accredited wool industry and supply chain partners must commit to acting with integrity, competent record keeping and, when requested, supplying customers with documentation to enable wool to be traced back to farm and flock.
"SustainaWOOL allows growers to come in at a position - it allows growers who are mulesing to come in at an introductory position (SustainaWOOL blue)," Mr Blake said.
"You can work your way up (through SustainaWOOL green) to gold standard if you wish, or you can stay within one of the tiers if you can see, in the environmental areas where you are running sheep, there is no provision to change what you do.
"When I developed a code of practice for ceased mulesing and non-mulesing, a lot of people thought I was against mulesing.
"But I think there are certain scenarios where if you don't mules and your animals get flystrike when you had an alternative operation you could have done to prevent that, but you didn't, you will have breached animal welfare standards."
Mr Blake, whose Bally Glunin Park clip was the first certified SustainaWOOL green clip to be sold in 2015 and who became the first SustainaWOOL gold wool producer in 2020, said the rapid recent uptake of Buccalgesic and Tri-Solfen pain relief indicated woolgrowers "want to do the right thing".
But totally eliminating mulesing and some other farm management practices that other integrity schemes prohibit, was not always possible, he said.
"WA wool would be far more saleable and the destination for some of it would change, if more woolgrowers joined the SustainaWOOL program," Mr Blake said.
"Being part of the SustainaWOOL program doesn't make any difference to the wool, it is exactly the same.
"What SustainaWOOL is doing is delivering to the customer credentials.
"Going from blue to green (tier) opens up a larger portfolio of partnerships with manufacturers who already have a greater interest in sustainability, traceability and supply chain integrity - I'm talking about Italian manufacturers.
"While the same level of interest (in provenance) has generally not reached China yet, it is coming, because Chinese wool processors can see the commercial benefits of being able to advertise their wool top as certified (by a recognised integrity scheme) and being able to sell it into Europe."
Tightening quarantine and environmental controls in Italy made exporting greasy Australian wool that might contain viable pest plant seeds or insects into Biella, the recognised home of top quality Italian fabric making, increasingly difficult, Mr Blake said.
"Up to 29 per cent of the wool going to Biella is now going via China for early stage processing because of stringent controls on greasy wool, so the (integrity and sustainability) certification that Biella requires is now being requested by the Chinese processors," he said.
"SustainaWOOL gives growers an opportunity to look at a quality assurance program that is simple and that they can use at any stage of their operation, it has full traceability and - most importantly - it has partners at the end of it that support it by purchasing the wool."
Mr Blake said he took on the honourary SustainaWOOL promotion role because he saw it as part of his gold membership "social responsibility requirement".
His family has been on Bally Glunin Park near Hamilton since the 1850s and he and wife Cathy have run a closed flock for the past 30 years, breeding what he describes as a "semi soft roller" Merino that - up until the shearer shortage - was shorn every eight months, producing 15-17 micron Superfine fleece with a 75-80 millimetre staple length.
He is rebuilding flock numbers back up to 7000 this year after what he described as a failed experiment in moving lambing from autumn to spring and then back again.
His flock has been declared non-mulesed since 2006.
Up until this year Mr Blake has always sold about 20pc of his annual clip by private treaty, dealing extensively with renowned Italian fabric makers Successori Reda and Vitale Barberis Canonico who, along with the Australian company they helped create, New England Wools (NEW), were the founding partners in SustainaWOOL in 2015.
In February he sold his entire clip by private treaty to Endeavour Wool Exports which has exclusive Europe contracts and future clips will be sold the same way.
SustainaWOOL is just one of 10 separate quality assurance schemes Bally Glunin Park operates under.
Over the years, Mr Blake has been involved with more than 95 research projects.
"As a woolgrower, I started my first research paper in 1970 to do with drench resistance, when I was 21," he said.
Mr Blake, who introduced his own standards for Bally Glunin Park wool some 20 years ago as a marketing point of difference from other superfine wools, has been heavily involved in helping develop national standards.
He was involved with the early development of CattleCare, Flockcare, the GO MARK Company and Safety MAP, in the 1990s.
Andrew Blanch, managing director of NEW - which wound down operations last June - is acknowledged as the creator of SustainaWOOL in 2015.
In 2019, NEW shareholders gifted the SustainaWOOL program to AWEX to ensure 'continued growth and international recognition of the scheme for the benefit of the wool supply chain'.
