Chairperson of the NWGA KZN, Hendrik Botha, said wool and lamb farmers in the province had expressed positive sentiments about the proposed implementation of a Code of Conduct for the industry. Consumers’ increasing demand for natural, socially responsible, humane and environmentally friendly products has prompted the South African wool industry to begin developing the code.
It has been designed to meet the on-farm quality raw wool and lamb production standards for the EU’s Eco Label, Global Partnership for Good Agricultural Practice, Fair Trade and organic accreditations. “It sets the basis for responsible operations to take part in a quality drive and, if necessary, to accredit to any of these standards,” said Prof Almero de Lange, chairperson of the Wool Forum of SA (WFSA). “Quality production, animal health and wellbeing, natural resource protection and social responsibilities are addressed in a Best Practice Reference Manual for Wool Sheep Farming that was developed by the NGWA SA, Elsenburg Research Institute, Woolworths, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, the National Department of Agriculture and the Veterinary Society of South Africa.”
Botha said the vast majority of wool and lamb producers in KZN, as in the rest of the country, were already unofficially operating enterprises that fell within most of the Code of Conduct’s specifications. “I think it will be very easy for our sheep farmers to begin doing these things within the official boundaries of the Code of Conduct,” Botha said. “Signing the code will now simply mean that international consumers of our wool and lamb products will have a guarantee of best practices used in the production of South African products. The South African wool and lamb industry needs something like this to promote itself on a greater scale internationally.”
“We also want to make sure that international animal rights groups have no ammunition with which to start accusing us of having a poor animal welfare record. These groups have targeted Australia in a big way and we don’t want that for ourselves,” Botha concluded. – Lloyd Phillips
