The wool value chain in Europe

The European projects Biobridges and BIOVOICES, the University of Bari Aldo Moro, Brebey and CyberEthics Lab are organising an international workshop on the wool value chain in Europe, focusing on the decision making process to support the creation of shared values and practices.
We aim at stimulate the dialogue between European stakeholders and policy makers to facilitate the drafting of an harmonized view, aimed at developing the European wool supply chain.

This workshop stems from the Italian online workshop entitled "Creation of a Chain of Native Wool in Italy" held on April 21, 2020, where several challenges and bottlenecks were highlighted.

The workshop will also be part of the EU Green Week (www.eugreenweek.eu), which this year theme is nature and biodiversity.

* * *

Coarse wool is currently a by-product of dairy production, so farms are not designed to be included in an industrial chain.
This state of being, combined with the mainly fragmentary condition of the territory, its practices and processes, involved or engageable in an ideal wool supply chain, suggests that this supply chain could well develop in a constellation of local micro value-chains. Heterogeneous and representative. Each in the image of its territory, of its wool, which is the direct and indirect result of it, of its biodiversity:

1. Non-conventional uses of raw wool can contribute to the survival of sheep farming, which is an important and traditional activity in worldwide mountain and arid regions, where there are few alternative forms of production or income.

2. Management of raw wool waste as a biodegradable renewable biomass has social, economic and environmental benefits contributing to the sustainable development concept.

3. Several non-clothing applications of raw wool: building insulation, oil spill sorbents, soil fertilizers, carbon nanofibers and scaffolds for tissue engineering have been developed.

On one hand research and local development, on the other global, rustic wool is not a by-product but a precious resource, which must be managed, like everything, with awareness and respect for the entire ecosystem and its rhythms.

Finally, the enhancement of the native sheep breeds also takes place through the economic enhancement of the supply chain. Promotion of the European wool value chain to protect the biodiversity of the indigenous breeds, which are now no longer bred or significantly declining. By exploiting wool, the native European breeds are recovered, helping to restore biodiversity in the farming system.