National Wool Declaration (NWD)
The animal welfare issue of mulesing has been topical since 2004. From this time the Australian sheep and wool industry has made a strategic commitment to develop and implement alternatives to mulesing . While this goal is a major challenge, it also represents a unique opportunity for the Australian Wool industry to be the leader in responding to changing global customer requirements and attitudes.
To enable woolgrowers wishing to promote to downstream users the evolving changes in their animal welfare practices, there is a need for a standardised declaration method. This is the function of the National Wool Declaration (NWD).
Once a woolgrower has completed the NWD, the contents are converted by the wool handling agent into a recognised Mulesing Status code for inclusion in the sale catalogue.
Update on National Wool Declaration
The annual review of the NWD was recently finalised. An important change is that NWD has now been combined with the Classer’s Spec to make completion easier. Woolclassers are advised that when using the combined NWD/Classer’s Spec, they should list ALL Mob Numbers for each line of wool (oddments as well as fleece wool) in the central section to link to the Mob Numbers in the NWD.
A document listing common Questions and Answers related to the NWD-Integrity Program is now also available, see links below.
2010 Review of the NWD
NWD V4.0, March 2011 – Guidelines for adoption by Brokers
NWD V4.0, March 2011 combined with Classer’s Spec – Landscape version
NWD V4.0, March 2011 combined with Classer’s Spec – Portrait version
NWD V4.0, March 2011 separate NWD for uses with old Classer’s Specs