Following Fleece: From Farm to Market

By Sarah Wilson


There are many factors that go into why a farmer may choose to have livestock or not, and furthermore, what type or species to have. Factors may include their land management goals, access to processing facilities, and available markets. In our first fiber blog, we looked at the long history of textiles, how clothes came to be, and how interwoven plant and animal fibers are with today’s agriculture. In this piece, we look specifically at wool from smaller-scale producers. 

Corriedale. Cormo. Bluefaced Leicester. Romney. Merino. What do these all have in common? These make up a small selection of sheep breeds that are well-known for their quality of wool. Sheep are perhaps one of the most diverse species of livestock and have been closely linked with people for at least the last 10,000 years. Sheep have provided meat and milk for food, as well as wool to make clothing and shelter. Having evolved all across the world, different breeds of sheep have developed - closely guided by people to meet certain criteria and characteristics. Some were kept primarily for meat and milk and do not grow wool - either they shed naturally or have hair, whereas others are now revered for their high quality wool. Not only are they a diverse species, each breed of sheep is well suited to a specific environment. Sofi Thanhauser, author of Worn: A People’s History of Clothing, points out that this requires also preserving a wide range of landscapes and terrain. 

Diversity in species of sheep has grown into an expansive range of different types of wool. In my local yarn store, I can walk around and count over 20 different types of wool, not to mention other natural fibers like linen, cotton, and silk. Each fleece is chosen for a particular reason, and goes through a fine-tuned series of growing, harvesting, processing, spinning, and dyeing to become the skein that it is on the shelf in front of me. Some wools are very fine and soft, like merino, and others feel more scratchy and are excellent outer layer garments and durable rugs.

In addition to providing wool, milk, and meat, sheep provide valuable services to a variety of landscapes. They fertilize agricultural soils with their droppings, can mitigate high fire fuel loads, and when used rotationally on pastures, can increase soil and plant health. Wool can be used to make clothing and home furnishings that have the potential to be composted and returned to soil further increasing soil health. During the process of writing this blog, I set out to connect with several farmers in my local and work communities to learn about the challenges and benefits that they experience in working with sheep, specifically around wool production. While sheep are a long-standing tradition in agriculture, at Bio-Logical Capital we are not involved with many wool-focused farmers in our work. One of the questions that I inspire to ask in our work is - what resources and infrastructure are needed to make sheep production more economically viable for farmers?

Case Studies


Hestia Field Farm, Colorado

On one of our first 90 degree days in Colorado after a cool and wet spring, I visited Hestia Field Farm not 20 minutes from our office in Denver. Terri and Claire welcomed me to their 2-acre farm and offered me a cold seltzer as we walked through pathways being encroached upon by lush foliage. They have been on the land since 2011 and have been working to improve the soil and promote a diverse ecosystem while being in tune with the needs of the land, pollinators, animals, and community around them. 

The sheep at Hestia Field Farm are shorn yearly, and their wool is carded into roving or spun into yarn.
Photo credit: Hestia Field Farm

Scottish Highlands cattle at Hestia Field Farm.
Photo credit: Hestia Field Farm

In the last four years, Terri and Claire have immersed themselves in a market for fiber. They currently work with a small flock of sheep, guarded by two burros, to cycle through the pastures subdividing their land. In this visit, they graciously shared with me their practices with the land, and the learning curves they have embarked on. 

We walked out to the pasture where the sheep were grazing and soon realized that the youngest burro, Watch, had temporarily closed the gate between the sheep and the shade shelter. Terri quickly hopped the fence to remedy the situation while Claire and I greeted Watch’s mom – Aunt Jane, a burro that was adopted through a Bureau of Land Management program that helps maintain wild horse and burro populations with the land’s capacity. Quickly, the multi-colored flock of Babydoll Southdowns, CVM*, and Finnish Landrace sheep flooded in to cool down in the shade. A very friendly flock on this urban farm, they came up to say hi, accepted nose scratches, and allowed me to feel their wool. These sheep forage on a diverse diet from Hestia Field Farm’s pastures that have benefited from multiple species of livestock adding to the soil, thoughtful seeding, as well as food waste from grocery stores and breweries in the area. They are protected by secure fences, Aunt Jane and Watch, sheltered by solid structures, and are helping contribute to a growing food- and botanical-dye-forest. They already harvest a variety of food from their land, and are adding to this by growing plants that can be used to dye fiber from the sheep.

*CVM, which stands for California Variegated Mutant, are derived from the Romeldale breed and are characterized by a face coloring that looks like a badger’s and soft, fine wool.

Once a year in the spring these sheep are shorn on-site with the help of a close network of friends. Recently, the sheep have started wearing light jackets that help keep the wool stay clean and undamaged from the strong Colorado sun – Terri and Claire have noticed a better yield and quality of fiber since doing this. The fiber (and meat) is processed within Colorado, only a few hours drive from Denver, into multiple weights of yarn as well as soft roving for hand spinning, felting, and other fiber arts. Unlike meat processing during the pandemic, their wool supply chain seems well oiled. The size of their flock has allowed them to access local wool processing facilities on a relatively quick timeline resulting in a variety of high-quality outputs. You can find this wool at local wool festivals and farmers markets, as well as on their website.


Black Cat Organic Farm, COlorado

One farm that I frequently see having farm stands in nearby Boulder County is Black Cat Organic Farm. On the outskirts of Boulder, Jill, Chef Eric Skokan, and their team grow grains, vegetables, chickens, geese, pigs, and sheep. They share their bounty at the farmer’s market, farm store, and via their restaurant. What started as a family garden, is now a 425-acre farm dedicated to nourishing, flavorful food and livestock conservation.

A days-old lamb at Black Cat.
Photo credit: Black Cat Organic Farm

Black Cat produce at a farmer’s market.
Photo credit: Black Cat Organic Farm

Black Cat Organic Farm has Karakul and Tunis sheep. The team at Black Cat chose these sheep breeds based on the farm’s geography, meat quality for their restaurant and market, and conservation considerations. Their farm stand at the farmer’s market boasts a wide variety of produce, along with a curated basket of balls of roving in hues of brown. Jill shared with me that one of the greatest challenges they face in selling wool is the limited and costly access to processing nationwide, along with finding markets to buy raw wool. They also save pelts from processed sheep, and salt and dry on their farm before shipping to a tanning facility. A lot of effort goes into these pelts, however it is rewarding and culminates in a beautiful product.


Philo Ridge Farm, Vermont

Philo Ridge Farm, a farm in Vermont that we work closely with, has a flock of sheep made up of several dual-purpose breeds, including Border Leicester, Romney, Cheviot, and hybrids of those breeds. When I first visited the farm, the livestock team allowed me to join in a day of daily chores. My colleague Gigi and I tagged along with Isabelle to check on the piglets, move the chickens, and visit the many pastures of the farm to rotate the flock of sheep and take down electric fencing around recently grazed pastures. When we arrived at the flock of white and brown sheep, they were happy to see Isabelle and wary of Gigi and I. The guard llama, Odyssey, stayed between us and the flock as he kept a watchful eye on us. Once we set up the new paddock with electric fences, the lambs quickly fled into the new area to munch on the grass.

Odyssey watches over the flock at Philo Ridge Farm.

A sheep pelt from Philo Ridge Farm.

The team at Philo Ridge Farm is dialed in managing this flock, rotating them among pastures along with the herd of Belted Galloway cows to feed on the diverse pastures and to fertilize and improve the soil organic matter through their droppings. An expert shearer comes twice a year to Philo Ridge Farm to shear breeding ewes and rams. That wool is sorted by color, bagged, and later spun into yarn at Green Mountain Spinnery in Putney, Vermont. Skeins of wool are then sold through the farm’s market, while some is sent to a weaver in Massachusetts to create blankets in varying designs with the different shades of brown and gray. Pelts are kept as co-products from meat processing and are prepared and salted on-farm before being sent to a tannery. These gorgeous, soft pelts are also available at the farm market.

While the fiber programs across each of these farms are nuanced, one similarity that I saw through these visits as well as through our NRCS Conservation Innovation Grant project, is the enormous upfront cost of infrastructure. To graze livestock sequentially through pastures requires a lot of fencing and more access points to water. Especially in Colorado, Jill, Claire, and Terri all echoed the importance of having shelters or facilities for the animals to find respite from extreme sun and inclement weather.

Considerations

Domestic sheep have been roaming the landscapes that now make up the United States, stewarded first by Native American and Hispanic shepherds, for over 500 years. In those 500 years, the wool industry grew until recently. This spring, I knit my second ever sweater – all sourced and processed in the US. The yarn I used was grown by Romney sheep in California and Oregon, milled in Pennsylvania, and dyed not far from our office in Denver. There is a niche knitting community that is centered around locally sourced wool, and larger brands are selecting wool for their products based on its sustainable and odor-resistant qualities. Despite its growing popularity, wool production in the US is declining, challenged by product competition from New Zealand and Australia, closing of regional and industrial-scale processing plants in the US, a decline in an American appetite for lamb, and a growing market for plastic fibers like nylon and polyester.

The Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Funders (SAFSF) have put together a detailed Fibers Roadmap that outlines supply chain hurdles in producing fiber, including wool, leather, and plant-based materials like cotton, linen, and hemp. For wool, nationwide they see the most disconnect (apart from financing) in processing, especially for mid-scale producers. While the new Farm Bill is in discussion, aid is available through open grant programs, of which we have listed a few below:

The US wool industry is currently small and we are seeing first-hand the challenges that come with shepherding. Nevertheless, wool continues to be a livelihood for people around the US and calls for our attention.