8. International market and transparency in sourcing

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National Wool Declaration (NWD)

The Australian wool industry, through Australian Wool Exchange (AWEX), has introduced a program – the National Wool Declaration (NWD) – which provides a means for farmers to document their flystrike control practices through the wool selling system.

Farmers are able to declare their wool as either Non-Mulesed (NM), ceased mulesed (CM wool comes from farms where farmers no longer practice mulesing) or pain relief treated (PR).

This provides transparency and choice in the marketplace for retailers and suppliers who wish to source these types of wool.

As an indication of progress, over a third of the wool sold through auction is currently declared through the NWD. This proportion continues to increase as more growers declare their wool through the NWD. More information and the current volume declared is available on the AWEX website. Putting this into context, the volume of ‘welfare friendly’ wool declared through the NWD in Australia, is greater than the combined total fine wool production in South Africa, Argentina, New Zealand and Uruguay.

AWI is encouraging retailers and brands looking to source such ‘welfare-friendly’ wool to select from the non-mulesed, ceased-mulesed and pain relief categories – as declared on the NWD. Not only does this send important market signals to farmers to declare their wool, but also allows the Australian wool industry to determine the types of wool most in market demand.

In September 2010 AWEX developed an on-farm audit program for the NWD – the NWD Integrity Program (PDF 1.22Mb). More information is available from AWEX.

Further information about the National Wool Declaration is available from AWEX.

Commitment to stakeholders

An original target date to end mulesing by 2010 has now passed. However, there has been strong progress to address welfare concerns and it continues with many farmers having already replaced the traditional procedure with welfare-improved practices.

AWI is committed to working inclusively with responsible stakeholders. This includes animal welfare groups, genetic and welfare scientific advisers, and the Australian sheep veterinary community in the development of a comprehensive and continuing R&D and breeding program.

AWI reports progress on a quarterly basis to international retailers and the supply chain. The company is committed to providing independent and transparent progress reports to its stakeholders.

Independent reports are done quarterly by the Australian Veterinary Association (AVA) and on a bi-annual basis by an independent genetic panel of experts. The latest results of research programs are also available on the worldwide web and through links on this website.

Click on the links below for more information about the industry's activities:

• AWI Research, Development, Extension & Communications Strategy: Breech Flystrike Prevention (PDF 133Kb)
• Australian Wool Innovation adopts new animal health and welfare flystrike prevention policy (AWI media release, 27 July 2009)
• AWI/PETA settlement (PDF 112kb)
• Declaration to National Retail Fedreation (PDF 883b)
• Information about the National Wool Declaration (NWD) and the latest NWD volumes (Source: AWEX website)