Now that can be taken in more than one way.

Recent global auction results are signalling the demand for all product dairy are back in demand and corresponding price stability is returning.

The New Zealand economy now depends on a strong stable result from cows eating grass in paddocks and making milk.

Back in the early 1950s it was wool that propelled a return to profitable trading for his island nation favoured to grow grass but at the mercy of location, following fears of another world war leading to a temporary return of demand for wool for military uniforms.
A spike that saw Sheep meat, which NZ was a significant exporter of enjoying excellent allied returns, I received four pounds for my pet lamb in 1952. The weekly wage for a labourer was around ten pounds at that time

Recent headlines have been slightly encouraging for wool, the trading demise of which is a fascinating conundrum. A wholly sustainable natural fibre with many and varied uses and advantages of low fire risk, with excellent aptitude for dealing with moisture and warmth, languishes, as harvesting costs make it a cost center for ovine meat production, oh yes Merino wool still is profitable, just.
However in a world obsessed with carbon nonsense, wearing and walking on fabrics manufactured from oil based product, eschewing wool in all its forms, can anyone make sense of the way wool is left to perish.

The North Canterbury Rotherham school recently the target for derisive commentary in an ignorant media for including feral cats in a fund raiser noxious pest assault, refused to install NZ Education Ministry funded synthetic carpet, using some of the deadcat fund to buy more expensive wool floor coverings?
Rotherham, slap bang in the center of a sheep farming arena where “The Amuri Wool Kings” once reigned supreme is now almost entirely a large Dairy farm sustained by the Irrigation scheme developed in the nineteen seventies as Border dyked farming over much of the flat arable land, now converted to spray irrigation from a Piped scheme that uses less water, covers more land and grows green grass.

New Zealand’s wool production of strong wools largely used in carpet and furnishing trade is facing a significant challenge as shedding breeds such as Wiltshire, gain acceptance to avoid shearing costs. Another contributor to this now threatened fibre comes from incorporation of new breeds seeking fertility and muscling such as Finn, Friesian, Texel that result in poorer quality wools.
The once dominant Romney is rapidly being expunged from sheep meat production, a fate that befell the once world leading Corriedale, bred from crossing long wool lincoln and leicester with merino to reach a dual purpose meat body with finer wool. A breed now largely consigned to history and hobby farming.

Protectionist policy from urban voted politicians who normally just adore being signatories to market idiocy such as Carbon zero are ominously silent when ignoring natural wool and merely stand aside while big pharma exploit oil based fibre production for profit. They just cannot see the hypocrisy.