For the last 20 years cashmere goats have largely been a hobby for south Otago farmer David Shaw but having crunched some numbers and seen their contribution to his property he believes a resurgence of the industry could be warranted.
The goats were earning their keep controlling weeds and improving pasture and there was income from the fibre, but when he dug deeper he found they were earning $20 to $40 a head for fibre, with meat value of $6 a kilogram, making them viable in their own right.
International fibre prices are about $US100/kg ($NZ140) gross, similar to values realised in the boom of the 1980s. China is the world’s largest producer.
Shaw believes cashmere goats have a cost-effective role improving the quality of less accessible hill country but that’s a bonus.
Fashion company Untouched World and yarn manufacturer Woolyarns have both said they want New Zealand-grown cashmere to enhance their products and strengthen their NZ provenance story.
“They both said ‘you produce it, we’ll use it.’ The challenge for us now is can we encourage farmers to grow it again?” Shaw says.
Goats still roamed many farms and could be the basis of a new form of farm production. Most produce 200 to 300 grams of fibre but there are bucks bred with the potential to grow 700 to 800 grams.
His finest hogget clips 12 microns and the flock average is 14.5 – comparable with the top 2% of Chinese cashmere production, which is sought-after by the world’s prestigious fashion houses.
Shaw says the environment today is vastly different to the 1980s when the industry spectacularly soared then collapsed.
Meat prices had plummeted with lambs worth $10 and ewes $2, and the economic reforms initiated by the David Lange government that removed farm production subsidies also altered tax laws ,which made investment in agriculture appealing to corporate and urban investors.
New industries such as deer farming and goat fibre were major beneficiaries of that investment, with corporate companies such as Cashmere Pacific farming 30,000 goats.
Animal values soared until the 1987 sharemarket crash brought all those excesses to an end. Shaw recalls many international markets also disappeared.
However, the fashion industry’s love for the softness, comfort and warmth of cashmere never disappeared. Shaw says global fibre sales to the industry are worth about $1.6 billion out of the total market of $60b, and growing by about 3.86% a year.
One gram can be spun into 50 to 100 metres of yarn.
Overstocking in parts of China and Mongolia has caused sustainability issues, prompting the government to take action that will reduce future production.
“We’re certain in our minds that in next five to 10 year period there will be huge potential building on the very useful farming systems based around cashmere goats.”
David and his wife, Robyn, have established the New Zealand Cashmere company, a vehicle to spread information about the industry and to also nurture growth by making cashmere genetics available to farmers at nominal cost.
“What we need is volume. Markets are there, we know the value of the market and we need to produce more fibre.”
About 25,000 animals produce about five to 10 tonnes, which his research showed could be consumed domestically. Current NZ production is about one tonne.
Shaw uses the goats on his 400ha South Otago farm near Clinton largely to control weeds, something he says they do well, chewing flowers off nodding thistles, gorse and other unwanted plants. They graze from the top down and hardly touch the clover.
A few years ago he was offered the chance to buy an established cashmere goat stud, and it dawned on him there were few farms left producing the fibre, which was holding the industry back.
He runs about 750 goats, about 5% of the total stock units on his cattle and lamb finishing property, but decided to make a push to get more people interested in farming for the fibre.
“No nobody else was going to do it so we decided to either give up or get something going.”
He has focused on breeding goats with cover, density and conformation but his flock was also producing some incredibly fine, quality fibre that was comparable to best coming out of China.
Shaw has had to do some minor modifications to goat-proof his farm. As a rule of thumb he says if a dog can get through a fence, a goat can as well.
Electrified wires on an outrigger now ring paddocks at knee-height, and an extra rail has been added to his sheep yards.
Goats are shorn once a year and Shaw has a system where he can do it with them standing up, shearing 200 a day. Males are castrated.
Shaw says the industry peaked at about 1.3 million in the late 1980s and while it was difficult to say how many there were now, he could see an industry built around a flock of 100,000.
