Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Mark Patterson: Associate Minister of Agriculture on new government directive supporting the wool industry

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Mark Patterson: Associate Minister of Agriculture on new government directive supporting the wool industry · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Big win for the wall sector. The government's directing agencies
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: to use wolwere appropriate when building and refurbishing government buildings. Essentially,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: the wall will be used for things like carpet, but
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: it will also be used for insulation. It's a wonderful fiber.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Associate Minister of Agriculture Mark Patterson is with me, and
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  Speaker 1: good morning to your Mark.
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  Speaker 2: Good morning Andrey.
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  Speaker 1: You're super keen for this. You're very happy.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, very happy. And I mean the sheep farmers and
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: the wider wolf sector is really happy too. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: this is a great opportunity for them. Now.
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  Speaker 1: The thing is, when we've had these debates, everyone goes, oh,
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  Speaker 1: but wolf's so expensive, is it?
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  Speaker 2: No, No, it's not. You know, it's a value proposition.
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  Speaker 2: I guess we're trading off maybe some price against a
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  Speaker 2: little bit of quality in terms of the properties of
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  Speaker 2: wolhares of the find natural fiber as you're saying, by degradable, etcetera.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: So yeah, there's potentially a little bit of it, but
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: I mean there's some price stuff has built into this policy.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: You know, they've got to account for that.
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  Speaker 1: So yeah, well this is going to benefit the industry
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  Speaker 1: and that's going to keep them on good footing. But
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  Speaker 1: the whole thing about wool and lamb, meat and sheep
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  Speaker 1: in general is we need to get export dollars out
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  Speaker 1: of them. So how do we do that.
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  Speaker 2: Well, things are going a lot too bad at the moment,
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  Speaker 2: and hopefully the current you know ruck it's over seas
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  Speaker 2: with the tariffs and that doesn't impact that too much.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: But I mean, we've seen a real upswing for our farmers,
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  Speaker 2: sheep and b farmers as well as a dairy farmers,
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: so that's you know, that's been really positive. But we
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: need that to be ongoing. So we've got to get
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: behind wolves, one of those things where it's been so
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: large for so long that we've just got to get
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: behind that part of the industry to give a little
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: bit more diversification for hill country farmers. Otherwise we're just
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: going to turn the whole place in the pine trees.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: So that's another elements of this policy.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, get it, totally get it. It's a very good way.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: In that interview, and I thank you so much for
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  Speaker 1: your time today. The Associate Minister of Agriculture, mister Mark Patterson,
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  Speaker 1: go the sheep. Remember the old days, you know, when
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  Speaker 1: we had like ninety million sheep and two million people,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: and everybody made sheep jokes overseas. What the numbers are
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  Speaker 1: so low because the market has been so bad for
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: so long. For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: listen live to news Talks it'd be from five am weekdays,
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.