Powerful marketing touts the virtues of so-called sustainable fashion. Wool, for instance, is especially prized as a natural fiber that is both biodegradable and climate positive.⁣

⁣Wool shorn from sheep that openly graze benefits climate because grazing tears surface-level grasses, stimulating root growth underground, which draws atmospheric carbon through the grass down into the soil. Soil is the planet's greatest terrestrial carbon reservoir. ⁣⁣

⁣⁣Wool from grain-fed sheep is not climate postive.⁣

⁣All livestock emit methane, a greenhouse gas offset by grass-fed sheep with the carbon capture of open grazing. ⁣

⁣The manure of grain-fed sheep additionally emits nitrous oxide.⁣

⁣NO2 is 300x more potent a greenhouse gas than CO2. Methane is 27x more potent than CO2. Both are shorter lived in the atmosphere than CO2.⁣

⁣Our climate crisis means potent greenhouse gases are a threat, whatever their lifespan.⁣

⁣90% of the global supply for fine apparel wool comes from Australia – a continent so ravaged by climate change-related drought that it is literally and tragically on fire. There is no grazing parched earth, now scorched.⁣

⁣Grass not grain makes wool climate beneficial.⁣

⁣Ask before you buy, “Grass or grain?”

Grain Matters⁣. Wool is climate beneficial when sourced from openly grazing sheep, where the methane livestock emit is offset by their chomping down on grass, stimulating root growth and drawing atmospheric carbon through the surface-level grass deep into the soil.⁣

⁣Grain feeding not only contributes the additional and super potent greenhouse gas NO2 to our saturated atmosphere, without the carbon offset of grazing, but the grain itself is predominantly corn, an industrially scaled monoculture crop wreaking its own devastating effect on our environment.⁣

⁣Before you buy, ask, “Grass or grain?"⁣

If you’re wearing wool in America, or Europe, or Asia, the odds are it came from Australia.⁣

⁣Australia supplies 90% of the world’s fine apparel wool, aka merino.⁣

⁣Drought and now wildfire conditions require that Australian farmers grain feed their massive flocks, negating the climate benefits wool is increasingly prized for.⁣

⁣China produces 40% of the world’s textiles and apparel, so the odds are that Australian wool then traveled by shipping container to China.⁣

⁣The distance from Melbourne to Beijing is approximately 9,700 miles. ⁣

⁣To reach LA from Beijing is another 6,300 miles. Freighting straight across the country to consumers in NYC, another 2,800 miles.⁣

⁣That’s an 18,800-mile sweater, jacket, coat, skirt, pants, suit, or dress if you’re purchasing in NYC.⁣

⁣The shipping industry contributes 3% of global CO2 emissions.⁣

⁣Just one container ship produces the same amount of pollution as 50 million cars.⁣

⁣The emissions of 15 container ships = all the cars in the world.⁣

⁣We are very focused on the carbon in the atmosphere — for good reason. ⁣

⁣That’s where it ends up. But where does it start?⁣

⁣Only local wool from openly grazing sheep is climate-positive. ⁣

⁣It’s not the fiber. It’s the system.⁣

Sheep in the American Northeast are raised on small, family-run farms. ⁣⁣

⁣⁣In Connecticut, our breeds are almost an A to Z of diversity, from the Baby Doll Southdown, first arriving in the U.S. in 1803 and derived from the sheep of the Sussex County, UK, South “Downs," to the Tunis, an endangered American breed of fat-tailed sheep, arriving from Tunisia in 1799.⁣⁣

⁣⁣Australian flocks, by contrast, are immense, averaging over 2,000 sheep. 80% are pure Merino, the remaining 20% are part Merino. The herds of the U.S. Intermountain West are similiarly large-scale, averaging 2,500 to 3,000 sheep. ⁣⁣

⁣⁣Sankow’s Beaver Brook Farm, 175 acres in Lyme, Connecticut, is the state’s largest sheep farm, where 450-600 sheep pasture alongside a dozen Jersey cows.⁣⁣

⁣⁣While Northeastern farms are small compared to the vast thousands of acres for Australian farms and U.S. Intermountain West ranches, rainfall makes our grasses highly nutritious. We are able to farm more intensively, grazing more sheep per acre than in arid Western landscapes. ⁣⁣

Sixth-generation Central Nebraska rancher Trent Loos interviewed TILL: bFt artist founder Jane Philbrick for today’s segment of his daily one-hour broadcast Rural Route Radio, aimed at bridging rural and urban America. The lively conversation found common ground with wool. Listen to the broadcast by clicking on the image!⁣⁣

1. Baby Doll Southdowns 2. Border Leicester 3. Natural Colored (Border Leicester) 4. Gotland 5. Alpacas 6. Clun Forest 7. Corriedale 8. Hampshire 9. Romney 10. Icelandic 11. Angora goats 12. Angora rabbits 13. Cotswold⁣⁣⁣⁣

Wool fiber is measured in microns; the lower the micron value, the finer the wool fiber.⁣

The Romney is a “long-wool” breed originating in England. The first Romneys arrived in the U.S. in 1904. Present-day American Romneys have English and New Zealand blood lines. ⁣

Romneys are “dual purpose” sheep, raised for wool and meat. Fleeces are lustrous, with the finest fiber diameter of the long-wool breeds. Prized by hand spinners and versatile, Romney wool is suitable for a range of products, from sweaters to carpets.⁣

⁣Thank you Olympia Farm for providing this valuable information.⁣

The Corriedale is the oldest of all crossbred sheep, introduced to America in 1914. The breed was developed in Australia and New Zealand between 1880 and 1910, crossing Leicester or Lincoln long wool rams with Merino ewes.

Corriedale sheep are dual purpose, raised for both meat and wool. Their fleece is bulky, semi-lustrous, with a staple length of 3.5 to 6 inches and micron diameter between 25 and 30. The wool is prized for medium-weight outer garments, worsteds (fabric made from fine smooth yarn, close-textured with no nap or fuzz) and light tweeds (rough surfaced woolen cloth), dress fabrics, yarns, and felts.

Corriedales are good mothers and fertile, often birthing two or more lambs. The breed is hearty, long-lived, and thrive in hot and cold climates.

Ewes average 130 to 180 pounds; rams tip the scales at 175 to 275 pounds.

Annual shearing yields between 10 and 17 pounds of fleece, of which approximately 50 to 60 percent is usable.

The Polled Dorset is an American sheep developed for meat production in 1956 after years of selective breeding from a Horned Dorset ram that had grown no horns in 1949. "Polled" means hornless.

Ewes are prized for their fertility, giving birth to multiple lambs in intervals as frequent as nine months. They are docile, good natured, and produce abundant milk, which can also be used to produce cheese.

The fleece of the Polled Dorset is white and dense, with a fiber diameter ranging between 27 and 33 microns, perfect for hand-spinning and felting.