[madcat]

How does a smallholder cope with fleece selling to spinners or giving free to spinning family members. Do the wool board really care where the fleece from 20 or so pet sheep ends up.

[Ladygrey]

I get around £2-5 per kilo from my shetland and cross bred fleeces, I sell directly to a spinner who has her own shop all set up and makes blankets, rugs and wool etc 

[Pedwardine]

I have a much bigger flock and sell direct to handspinners, felters and suppliers of all stages of processed fleece. Not had any comeback from the woolboard. Never even thought about it. I do work hard to provide a top notch product but my fleece all goes out in a raw state.

[bloomer]

i don't have sheep am just nosey, in theory do the wool board have any right to the fleece, i assumed they were just another outlet to sell too???

[Hellybee]

We take ours to a wool merchant, we have a right mixed bunch of sheep, I doubt spinners would want ours lol, but no you don't have to register with the wool marketing, you can sell it where you like, the idea registerng of the wool marketing is IMO to make sure you have a guaranteed price.  When I went to register us, it seemed like a right gaff, booking in, the right bags, packaged in a certain way etc, so we just go local instead. 

[mowhaugh]

I thought if you had more than a certain amount of sheep, you had to sell via the British Wool Marketing Board, unless you had applied for permission to do otherwise?

[Ladygrey]

Yes thats correct, I think if you have over 3 sheep you are obliged to sell to the wool board unless you "opt" out

[Hellybee]

Doesn't seem to be an issue round here 

[shygirl]

Yes thats correct, I think if you have over 3 sheep you are obliged to sell to the wool board unless you "opt" out

I never knew that. is it law? in Scotland? they never asked me for my wool....

[Rosemary]

If you have four or more sheep, you are obliged to register with BWMB but you can apply for an exemption from giving them your fleeces to sell. We got one way back - coloured fleece is not top of their agenda as they are supplying the mass market.

Remember, BWMB don't actually buy your fleece - they are a farmer co-operative and sell fleece on your behalf and pay you an advance then a balancing payment once the fleece is actually sold. I think it's a good system on the whole. Might not suit everyone - but that's why there's an opt-out.

[JulieWall]

If the wool board have that kind of power I wonder why in 20 years of farm census compliance we have never seemingly come across their radar? Why have we never been asked what we do with our fleece and why isn't it on the survey or census forms?
As this is the first I've heard of this they surely can't be all that bothered about what people do with their own wool?

Unless it becomes more of an issue if you apply for subsidies? I'm often told by farmers that if you don't get subsidies they have nothing they can threaten to remove. We comply with every regulation but they wouldn't know it as we've never been inspected yet. I sometimes wonder if it's because we don't get subsidies that all we get is the latest regs sent through the post.

Can anyone shed light on this?

[smallflockshearing]

BWMB sell by auction, and there is no other way to buy commercial quantities of UK wool. If you started buying up tonnes of wool from producers and selling at competitive rates then they might take notice, but that would be tricky - the margins are low as it is, but they would be lower without the monopoly of the BWMB, and buyers will only raise bids in shortages, which there won't be, really, since the markets are full of alternatives. 
They're not fussed about a few fleeces here and there, especially since it allows small businesses to develop which, perversely, helps them by popularising wool products.

[Fleecewife]

The Wool Board is not a draconian body with 'powers' over us.  As I understand it, it was set up for the benefit of British wool producers needing to sell their product on a shrinking world market.  Imagine if every single sheep farmer had to find their own market for their fleece crop.  With the huge competition from Australia and NZ, which incidentally are much closer to the huge Chinese wool market so an obvious source for them, Britain no longer gets much of a look-in.  Most of our wool used to go for carpets, but few people want wool now, or even carpets.  British wool used to be highly desirable in places such as Italy, for bouncy mattresses.  In Britain we have a wide variety of sheep and fleece types, little of it very fine, so for suiting and other clothing it's not all that sought-after, since the popularity of manmade fibres for clothes.  Changed times from centuries ago when British wool was top of the market, to the extent that there was a roaring trade in wool smuggling.
The purpose of the Wool Board is to have our crop out there on the world market, and to get the best price possible for the producer.
Total production of fleece in Britain, especially of a particular breed or quality, is relatively small, so it helps the Wool Board to have everyone's clip going to them.  Small crops of odd breed wool are just a nuisance, so they're not bothered what smallholders do with their clip, and the exemption is there to cater for small producers to seek a local market.

We didn't register with the Wool Board until we wanted to enter fleece into shows, as you need a membership number to take part.  They do have some useful information on wool production and are happy to supply craft workers with small quantities of fleece.

[SallyintNorth]

Whenever I've needed to talk the Wool Board I've always found them knowledgeable, helpful and very approachable.  If you have any concerns or questions I wouldn't hesitate to call them.

As a commercial farmer we would need to inform them if we wished to sell our clip otherwhere.  However it is not a problem to retain the small number of fleeces for handspinning that I want for myself and for friends.

[Rosemary]

Whenever I've needed to talk the Wool Board I've always found them knowledgeable, helpful and very approachable.  If you have any concerns or questions I wouldn't hesitate to call them.

I'd second that. They provide the wool on the hoof judges for Festival and Gathering and are both helpful and supportive.