Sheep on a farm near Wairoa. Photo / Paul Taylor
After years of struggling to eke out profits, brighter days seem assured for wool farmers, according to the country’s only wool scourers.
WoolWorks, which has factories in Hawke’s Bay and Timaru, is seeing wool prices shoot to a 10-year high.
General manager WoolWorks Grower Direct Jason Everson said wool prices have jumped 30% over the past year and farmers are making money from the natural resource once again.
Full-length fleece, or 12 months’ growth, is selling around $5.20 per kg – an increase of about $1.25 per kg compared to the same time in 2025.
Looking further back, the Fusca price indicator was $2.25 per kg for clean wool in July 2023 and is now up to $4.75 per kg for clean wool this month – a $2.50 per kg gain in 31 months.
Other wool category prices are also up by over $1 per kg compared to this time last year.
But Everson said the “changing landscape” will likely keep prices high.
He said traditionally, when prices became too high, Chinese buyers would stop buying, leading to lower prices.
However, with a reduced international wool clip available and scoured New Zealand wool sought after in India and Europe, this isn’t the case anymore – with India alone taking over 20% of the New Zealand clip.
Sheep numbers are declining among all major wool-growing countries, with both Australia and Britain reporting high wool prices.
Everson said the British wool market reports also show a 10-year high for specific categories of wool.
As a result, buyers and manufacturers cannot delay purchasing wool and prices remain elevated.
He said Chinese manufacturers are constantly developing new products and fabrics that use wool – with sectors, such as bedding that traditionally use down, now using more wool products.
In April, the Government announced that government buildings will preference the use of wool, which is positive for the ongoing domestic market, further supporting prices.
Everson explained a more favourable NZD/USD than mid‑2025 was good for New Zealand farmers.
Everson said with European nations requiring life cycle assessments of materials, wool is showing its green credentials and becoming a fibre of choice.
Everson said farmers can focus on woolshed preparation and that supplying quality wool means better prices, with even an extra 50c per kg making a difference to farmers.
Federated Farmers Hawke’s Bay president Jim Galloway said the price bump in wool will allow local farmers to cover their costs of shearing instead of losing money on it.
“A couple of years ago, every sheep you shore you lost money on it. So, you got less for the wool than what it cost to shear it,” he said.
However, Galloway said there’s still a long way to go before wool is where it was 20 to 30 years ago.
“But it’s certainly better.”
Southland wool grower Adrian Lawson recently sold wool via WoolWorks Grower Direct on an online auction where he got $1.41 more per clean kg more for his ewe fleece than he got last year, fetching $5.22 per kg clean, the highest he has made in 10 years.
He said he is now making money from his wool, receiving well above his shearing costs.
“There’s light at the end of the tunnel and it seems prices will keep rising.”