AUSTRALIAN wool growers could meet the December 2010 deadline for unmulesed wool if they wanted.
That was message delivered six weeks ago by Australian Wool Innovation's acting manager of wool production, Paul Swan.
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In one of the more positive announcements from AWI in recent times, Dr Swan told growers in Bendigo of three alternatives to surgical mulesing.
These included the now commercially available anti-flystrike clips, the soon-to-be-released breeding values for bare-breech sheep and an intradermal treatment from Cobbett Technologies that could be available next year.
Dr Swan said 60 per cent of this year's lambs would not be mulesed and 50-70 per cent of those that were mulesed would be treated with a painkiller.
He urged producers to declare whether their wool was from unmulesed sheep or from lambs that had had pain-relief treatment when they were mulesed.
"Many more producers could declare their wool than is happening," Dr Swan said.
But while Dr Swan had a message from AWI management, the directors of the AWI board had other ideas.
AWI chairman Wal Merriman was already questioning if there was a deadline.
And UK processor and AWI director Laurence Modiano was lobbying to change the anti-mulesing stance of one of wool's most important retailers, Marks and Spencer.
Mr Modiano used the argument that the mulesing issue was driving people out of wool production, which in turn would affect the supply to the likes of Marks and Spencer.
The fact that drought, a shift to cropping and the impact of the sheepmeat market were also major factors was incidental.
Following the concern about the supply of non-mulesed sheep by the one of China's largest wool processors, the Sunshine Group, Mr Modiano continued to lobby the Chinese.
By the beginning of last week Mr Modiano had mustered the signatures of 26 Chinese processors and traders to plead his case with Marks and Spencer.
The Chinese companies said: "We ask you to respectfully to consider your position in sourcing non-mulesed and ceased-mulesing wool, which we fear is unrealistic."
The Sunshine Group was not a signatory to the petition.
