Come summer, every self-respecting shepherd has already sheared his sheep. Since time immemorial, wool had been a highly prized material, especially for textile uses. However, with the irruption of synthetic fibers in the sixties, the panorama began to change completely, to the point of being considered practically waste today.
Although wool production in Catalonia is now half of what it was 20 years ago due to the decline in the sheep herd, the less than 500 tons of wool that are produced do not have a market to buy them. The situation is somewhat better for the wool of Merino sheep, most prized by the textile sector, but even so only 1% of the world production of textile fibers is from wool, according to the European Man-made Fibers Association.
Wool is also a material that competes in a global market, in which distant Australia, China and New Zealand are the main world producers with market shares of 23.4%, 15.5% and 9.1%. , respectively. In Catalonia, there are no industrial processing plants and there are only a few in Spain and Europe.
Several initiatives try to turn the situation around. At the beginning of June, representatives of the sheep sector and the Zapatelas association met with the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to establish points of collaboration around wool. On the other hand, the Federation of Rural Women’s Associations (Fademur) published in April the Manual of uses of wool in Spain, thinking of its members and other rural entrepreneurs with projects around this material.
In Catalonia, Tagamanent City Council (Vallès Oriental) is seeking funding to build “what would be the only wool processing plant”, according to the mayor of the municipality, Ignasi Martínez. The mayor announced the project at a conference on bioeconomy organized by the College of Economists of Catalonia.
Also in the municipality of Tagamanent, in Clot de La Móra, the artisan Laia Aguilà, author of the book Torna la llana (Edicions Sidilla), is convinced that Catalan wool will eventually find its place in the market. “It is true that there are higher quality wools than others, but it all depends on the use that you want to give it,” says Aguilà, who points out that it is a biodegradable, fireproof, antibacterial, insulating, breathable material that absorbs moisture, prevents condensation and is highly durable.
All these properties open up a range of new uses for wool, beyond the textile sector. Companies such as RMT, in Santa Eulàlia de Ronçana (Vallès Oriental), have been researching and marketing wool for years as thermal and acoustic insulation in buildings and as a weed prevention system in plantations or insulation against frost to replace the agricultural plastics currently used. .
Wool also has a path as compost or fertilizer, either in solid form (pellets, for example), or in liquid form through hydrolysis, and as a substrate in seedbeds or nurseries. Likewise, in countries like Scotland or Ireland it is used as a base on road surfaces, as a substitute for plastic mesh. The Manual for the use of wool in Spain mentions other possible uses as an absorbent in operations to clean up polluting spills, such as in the case of oil spills at sea, or as a flocculant or filter agent, for example, in the treatment of sewage.
For all these uses to become a reality, not only is it necessary to be able to process the wool locally, profitably and without harming the environment, but it is also necessary to awaken a demand that is now dormant. “Processing costs are very expensive and the demand for products with wool is still very low,” acknowledges Sergi Iglesias, head of R&D at the RMT company. “The reality, today, is that farmers offer us wool for free and we have to say no because we have a lot in stock,” adds Jordi Iglesias, executive director of RMT.
