Rural / Country

Move to reintroduce wool levy

09:14 am on 20 August 2014

The Campaign for Wool will be a beneficiary of a resurrected wool levy if farmers decide to support it.

Sheep farmers will start voting in September on a proposal to bring back the compulsory levy on their wool which they stopped paying about five years ago.

A farmer and wool industry group behind the idea is proposing a charge of three cents a kilo of wool, which would raise more than $4.5 million a year.

The group's chair, Saundra Faulkner, said $2.7 million would go towards education, raising awareness and demand for wool. That would include the International Campaign for Wool, launched in 2010.

"The Campaign for Wool has had some phenomenal opportunities presented to them them that they have been unable to take up here in New Zealand just simply because they didn't have the funding," she said.

"Their focus is largely off-shore, but they've got some great ideas that could be done here as well."

The levy contribution to the Campaign for Wool would replace a payment that currently comes from wool testing, she said.