FUNDING - the bane of all farming bodies - is about to be sought for AWEX's National Wool Declaration.

AWEX chief executive Mark Grave said the declaration had been evolving over the last five or six years and was about to develop an audit system back to the farm.

Although this is necessary if the declaration is to maintain credibility, it is going to require someone to pay.

The NWD was initially developed for the Dark and Medullated Fibre Risk scheme.

It now allows wool growers to declare the mulesing status of their clips.

And while less than 8 per cent of auction bales are being declared in regard to mulesing, overseas apparel retailers see the NWD as vital to ensuring wool's customers.

Two weeks ago, Mark Grave and an Australian Wool Innovation delegation met with the British Retail Consortium to advance the cause of the NWD.

"The objective is to develop a cost-effective declaration but one which is robust enough to maintain industry confidence," Mark said this week.

He said he was gratified to see that BRC, representing leading UK wool apparel, is advocating the need for an annual audit of only 3 per cent of declarations.

An audit would require an on-farm inspection of a sample of sheep from declared mobs, he said.

Unfortunately, AWEX doesn't have the funding for such audits.

The options include a quality assurance levy on bales offered at auction or a request to either the Federal Government or Australian Wool Innovation.

Given that current AWI is reluctant to get involved in differentiating an un-mulesed bale from a mulesed bale, C&C is not hopeful of any quick resolution of the funding issue.

As AWI chairman Wal Merriman often puts it - "that's something the market can sort out".

Flystrike help

WHILE the Sheep Cooperative Research Centre can't promise 100 per cent control of flystrike, it is promising that it has all the latest information of flystrike management.

The industry and government funded CRC has established what it calls the Producers Corner on the Sheep Cooperative Research Centre website.

The website details information gleaned from the CRC's Information Nucleus flocks.

According to the Sheep CRC project leader, Lu Hogan, all of the progeny from these flocks from eight sites (low to high rainfall) across Australia were left unmulesed.

This, in turn, has provided valuable experience in how to run sheep with variable susceptibilities to breech strike.