Drought Pushes Australian Wool Production To 20-Year Low - AFP

[hatrack]

Australia's wool harvest is set to dwindle to its lowest in 20 years, industry figures showed Monday, as the nation's worst drought in a century weighs further on the beleaguered rural community. Record low rainfall has led the nation's wool producer body, Australian Wool Innovation (AWI), to slash its "shorn wool production" outlook for 2006-07 by nine percent on last year's 461,000 tonnes.

The latest gloomy figures represent a further downward revision of three percentage points on AWI's September 2006 forecast, as parched conditions increasingly ravage the country's farming sector.

AWI forecaster David James said while volumes had been positive for the first five months of the year to June 2007, wool production was set to "diminish significantly" in the next six months, when the full effects of the drought would be felt.

The estimates were particularly bad because for the first time in at least a decade, drought conditions had spread to nearly all of the country's main wool producing areas, he said. "Unlike the 2002 drought, which was largely across the eastern seaboard, the current drought is Australia-wide." The drought has forced many farmers to sell off their stock for slaughter to make ends meet amid skyrocketing feed costs.

EDIT

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Drought_Slashes_Australian_Wool_Production_To_20_Year_Low_999.html

[bluerum]

1. Well,,, we won't need the wool for clothing when it is 110 degrees

at the North pole.

Lets eat the sheep.