Hamilton wool grower sets gold standard

A new wool-clip accreditation has resulted in a top sale for Michael and Cathy Blake.

Michael and Cathy Blake from Bally Glunin Park at Hamilton with some of their wool accredited with SustainaWOOL Gold Certification.

Michael and Cathy Blake have gone a step further in making sure their wool is quality assured.

The Blakes operate their 1800ha property, Bally Glunin Park at Hamilton and have just sold the first bales of wool under the new SustainaWOOL Gold Accreditation.

SustainaWOOL, owned by the Australian Wool Exchange, provides benchmark sustainability standards within the wool production systems of Australia.

The new Gold standard means growers take their sustainable wool production a step further and act as role models who enact the highest standards for sheep health and welfare, environmental management, clip preparation and traceability.

As an early adopter of wool quality assurance programs in the 1980s, Bally Glunin Park signed up to SustainaWool from the start and holds the number 16 certification.

“It was a natural progression to pursue the SustainaWOOL Gold Certification as the highest level as it fulfils what I consider the keystone quality assurances for delivering our wool to processors and end users,” Michael said.

Bally Glunin Park received its SustainaWOOL Gold Certification number 1 status in October last year and had it reconfirmed after their on farm audit earlier this month.

“SustainaWOOL Gold was created to provide more vigour in the standard, particularly in the areas of animal welfare and traceability under an umbrella of an annual on farm audit, to show that what you say you are doing on the desktop audit is what you have done in reality.”

Under the certification any form of breech modification is prohibited including the use of liquid nitrogen. It is mandatory to use pain relief at lamb marking for castration and tail docking.

And with traceability the Blake’s wool bales now carry the e-bale tags and they use WoolClip as a tracking platform.

“For us SustainaWOOL Gold is another piece of the jigsaw to satisfy end user requirements,” Michael said.

A fortnight ago the Blakes sold the first SustainaWOOL Gold certified wool in Melbourne. They received a top price of 2000c/kg for 16.5 micron wool with a 73.5% yield 79mm staple length and 40 Newtons per kilotex from eight months growth.