Camelids
Upcoming Events
New York State Fiber Conference
June 9, 2024, 9:30 to 4:00
Butternut Hill Campground, 6893 US Route 20, Bouckville NY 13310
For conference agenda and registration:
https://caahp.ccext.net/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=193
Advance registration required by June 3, 2024. Conference is limited to the first 50 participants.
New York Veterans' registration fee reimbursed by the Farm Ops Program.
Registration questions: contact Dara Boudreaux, tff24@cornell.edu
Quality Matters
Beginners as well as more experienced fiber producers are sure to gain valuable hands-on skills and knowledge with respect to fiber quality and what to look for. You will be physically touching, feeling and seeing the difference between various fiber and fleece types in the presence of an instructor. The instructor will display and demonstrate what you need to look for in a quality fleece or fiber. You will also learn how to skirt a fleece and what the best uses are for the different fibers. There will also be a sheep shearing demonstration with a commentary on what needs to be done at this stage to insure the best quality.
Participants will go away with an understanding of the different certification programs and how they might be beneficial to their farm business.
About Animal Fiber Production in New York
NYS small ruminant fiber producers are primarily small flock farmers, with over 87% of all wool-producing sheep farmers having less than 100 head herds. Besides sheep, there are also goat, alpaca, rabbit, and bison farmers in NYS that also produce fiber, but wool is the most common with over 250,000 lbs. of wool produced in 2017 according to the USDA agricultural census of that same year.
These small flock producers only produce 41% of the wool in NYS indicating the scale of their enterprises. This small scale restricts the availability of markets to which these producers can contribute and increases costs associated with reaching a market forcing these farmers to become creative with their marketing and distribution channels. This creativity appears in their willingness to pursue value-added products and direct marketing which increases the income from their wool but also increases the costs associated with processing their wool as a result of economy of scale and the infrastructure available to these producers.
Markets small flock fiber producers in NYS work in include: direct-to-consumer value-added and artisan markets (e.g. festivals, farmers markets, online sales), wholesale and consignment retail markets, and the commodity market through regional wool pools.
***Much of this information is pulled from “Analyzing Farm Level Practices and Policies for a Financially Viable Sheep Farm Enterprise using System Dynamics: Focus on Fiber Production and Marketing”
