Beyond the Bale - Issue 25 - Growers flock to Wool4Wealth
Richard Dutton likes Merino sheep and information. So when the Wool4Wealth program was launched last year, Richard (pictured right with son Charles examining the fleece on one of their rams) and a number of his fellow wool producers were keen to get a group going in the district.
Their Bathurst group was formed in May 2005 after he went to the project launch in Young and fellow woolgrower Michael Inwood to the program launch in Dubbo.
Both farmers were instrumental in forming the group, which regularly has 11 to12 members at meetings.
"We're all involved in grazing around the Bathurst area and saw this as an opportunity to fine-tune our enterprises and improve our profitability," Mr Dutton says.
The group aims to tackle four modules a year and surveys members after each meeting to gauge the usefulness of the information presented.
Topics covered by the Bathurst group include benchmarking, wool marketing and risk management and climate change.
"The great thing about Wool4Wealth is that we get a topic and a presenter then have a discussion. It gives us a forum where like-minded people can get together and access information. It will have colossal ongoing benefits for the people involved and is very positive for the wool industry.
"While most of our older group members have been in discussion groups, there hasn't been a district discussion group in our region for at least 10 years. This means a lot of the younger group members have never been in a discussion group before, and these people are finding Wool4Wealth really interesting."
This is particularly useful when younger family members are involved in the farm business, and in Mr Dutton's case his 22-year-old son Charles is also a group member.
"The content of Wool4Wealth really highlights that we can all fine-tune our existing enterprises to improve our profitability, rather than changing enterprises," Mr Dutton says. "Wool4Wealth is making us evaluate our Merino enterprise by looking at the positives and negatives of what we do in terms of our management and whether changes should be made to our operations such as shearing and lambing times."
More information: 1800 010 530, www.wool4wealth.com
Return to Beyond the Bale issue 25 index page.