Rabobank staff and clients travel to Mongolia to run sheep shearing courses

This year’s team of four Rabobank staff, fourteen clients and shearing contractors spent three weeks in Mongolia where they held thirteen courses teaching over two hundred nomadic herders to shear sheep using electric machines. Mongolia has thirty million sheep yet, due to lack of capacity, ten million of these sheep are unshorn each year resulting in poor animal health and the waste of 9,000 tonnes of wool.  

The introduction of electric machines and the training by Share Mongolia dramatically improves the productivity of the shearer. An average herder can shear up to 30 sheep a day using the traditional Mongolian method of basic scissors.  After a week’s training, the same herder can shear over two hundred sheep a day with a machine.  The herder is paid 50 cents per sheep shorn so using scissors earns $10 a day, with machines, this increases to $100 a day providing very good income for previously unemployed youth.

It is very pleasing to see how trainees from previous years that travelled and worked in New Zealand have learnt from New Zealand employers MacKintosh shearing and Barrowcliffe Shearing and have started their own businesses shearing sheep for fellow herders. These businesses have had remarkable success – with one team of six shearing over 1500 sheep in one day –  and will look to employ trainees from this year’s courses. Share Mongolia also teach wool sorting and packing which has doubled the value herders receive for their wool.

The Share Mongolia Project was founded by Rabobank staff from Otorohanga and Hamilton and is sponsored by The Rabo Community Fund, The United Nations and the New Zealand Embassy to China.  Share Mongolia’s goal is to use Rabobank staff and clients’ skills to educate and train Mongolian herders to farm more efficiently, profitably and sustainably.

Mongolia is a developing country with 200,000 nomadic herder families with an average family income of US$5,000/year. While there is high unemployment (17 per cent) and challenges with sustainability and viability, there is great potential in the agricultural sector. 

To learn more about Share Mongolia, visit: Share Mongolia