A few weeks ago I gathered a small group of farmers, processors, retailers, supply chain experts and the Connecticut and NY Textile Lab Fibersheds on Zoom to talk waste wool.
We still have so many farmers throwing out their wool! There is such an incredible brain trust out there to tap into, our thoughts were, let’s get a group together to talk about some of Mia’s challenges and opportunities.
Her mission from the call was to:
- Gauge whether/how much of an interest there is among sheep farmers in our region for a market to sell their especially coarse/waste wool.
- Get an understanding from farmers about whether they would be interested in/willing to sell products made from their wool in their farm stores/markets.
- Hear from retailers and regional craftspeople/producers what kinds of non-yarn wool products they/their customers would be interested in.
We had lots of exciting ideas from the small group ranging from the crossover of waste wool + gardening products to fertilizer and felted products farmers could sell at markets. We also talked about the massive need for farmers to think about the marketing and communications needed to sell their wool and how we could help supply them with interns from local design colleges…
Read the full story here on the Southeastern New England Fibershed site.
