Argentinian wool clip back on a growth track

Annual Argentinian Wool Statistics for season 2019/2020 published

On 22 July 2020, the Argentine Wool Federation based in Buenos Aires, published its yearly national Wool Statistics with results of the ending season of 2019/2020 and forecast for the new season 2020/2021.

Argentina is the 5th largest wool producer in the world with a wool production of 42.000 tons of greasy wool in 2019/2020. The industry is forecast to grow this volume in the new season to 44.611 tons. The national wool clip is split up into 60,5 % fine wool, 37,5 % medium crossbred and 2 % coarse wool.

This wool clip was grown on the back of a sheep population of 10.623.542 sheep. For the upcoming season 2020/2021 it is estimated that the Argentinian sheep population will increase by close to 2 million sheep. This increase is based on a recent headcount during a wider vaccination activity in a couple of wool growing regions.

The largest number of sheep live in the province of Chubut 31,77% followed by Santa Cruz 22,51% and Buenos Aires 13,96%.

Only 1000 tons of greasy wool is consumed in Argentina while the rest is exported to various wool manufacturing countries. In 2019/2020, 25 % of the Argentina wool clip was exported to Germany in the form of wool tops as well as scoured wool and noils. The second-largest export destination was China with 19.7% of which the majority was in greasy form.

Overall, 60% of all Argentinian wool is exported as wool tops, 30.5% as greasy, 5.9% in form of noils and 3.2% scoured. The remaining 0.4% are by-products such as burrs.

Over the last decades, the Argentinian wool industry has developed its sheep genetics to a finer wool clip in order to meet the demand of the consumer markets for more next-to skin-friendly wool fibres. Today, the fineness of the Argentina wool clip ranges between 16.5 and 32.6 or above. 40% of the clip has a fineness between 19-21 micron.

President of the Argentina Wool Federation and Board Member of Fuhrmann, Marco Gallia, summarises the past season as a good one. He explains that the weather patterns were in favour of growers with enough rainfall. In addition, wool prices have also been good for growers, before the Covid-19 pandemic hit the global wool markets. Overall, the Argentinian wool industry is hopeful, that sheep numbers will continue to grow and leave behind the lowest wool production and sheep numbers of all times 2 seasons ago. 

 

The full market statistics can be downloaded here.

For more information about the Argentine Wool Federation, please visit: www.flasite.com

 

FLA_Argentina sheep population 2019-2020

Source: Federacion Lanera Argentina