Wool growers and The Weekly Times Merino Farmers of the Year Duncan and Jess Barber run 25,000 saxon merino sheep, based at their Coliban Park property in Metcalfe, Central Victoria.

We produce ultrafine to superfine fleece for high-end fashion and about 70% of our clip is exported to Northern Italy, Woollen mills like Vitale Barberis Canonico use it to make fabric for designers including Armani, Loro Piana and MJ Bale.

The mills are now shut due to coronavirus, and they only want the bare minimum fleece to maintain a small supply. We’d shorn half our flock just before things escalated and managed to get that sale through, but the market had fallen and from last year to this year, we lost half our income.

We recently won an industry award that included a trip to Italy in June to see our fibre transformed into fabric, but that’s not happening now. It’s certainly not important in the grand scheme of things.

Our other biggest challenge is the internet – we’re on satellite NBN with data limits because of where we live. Looking on the bright side, we will have our four children all at home next term learning online. Which will give us eight extra hands. However learning online, will really chew through the data.

Supervising the kids’ education while continuing to manage the farm could prove very interesting for us all!

Duncan and Jess Barber
Coliban Park