Help us build a Mini-Mill

We're a group of small farmers, crofters and crafters located in the Scottish Highlands, who've started Highland Wool CIC, to ‘support a sustainable wool industry in Scotland’. We're running this crowdfunder to purchase and restore - save from the scrap heap! - the basic equipment we need to get going.

Did you know that the sale of the annual wool harvest used to earn enough to pay a farm tenant’s rent? Now, it costs a farmer more to shear his sheep than he earns from the wool, and many small (and large) farmers have little choice but to discard it, once shorn. Because, while Scotland famously has more sheep than people, it has very few 'vertical' (from fleece to fibre) mills - and none in the Highlands. If we don't process our wool ourselves (and many have no facilities, skills, or time), our wool must travel long distances to be bought by the British Wool Board (too often at a loss to the farmer), or processed into yarn for sale back on our farm.

Wool is an incredible fibre: it's a carbon-storing wonder (50% of the weight of clean wool is carbon, stored for as long as that wool exists!) and a self-replenishing resource. But if that wool racks up transport and fuel miles during its processing journey, all the goodness it starts with is cancelled out. If it goes to landfill – or worse, is burned as rubbish! – all that stored carbon is released into our atmosphere. Highland Wool wants to turn as much wool as we can into long lasting products, help farmers earn a decent price for what they work so hard to produce…and create sustainable jobs in our small rural communities.

To achieve this, Highland Wool will transform a 200+ year old dilapidated stone barn into a mini-mill, one which uses sustainable energy, traditional knowledge blended with new learning, water recycling, and sheer determination to prove that 'there's no such thing as waste wool'. And we can start right now, with your help.

Sourcing equipment of the type and size we need is a challenge these days, so when we heard of a collection gathering dust and rust in a barn in southern Scotland, we were thrilled! We sent our engineer down to look at it, and while some of it needs repairing, it is largely in working order…and when we found out how little the owner is asking for it, we knew we had to do everything we could to purchase and repair it – and give it a new life on our farm in the Scottish Highlands.

We have a target of £7000 to purchase, repair and transport this equipment to the Highlands: a wool picker, a carding machine, and assorted other pieces of equipment. Anything raised above that amount will go toward the barn renovation project. We’d love to have you join us on our journey toward ‘supporting a sustainable Scottish wool industry’. Thank you for reading this, and for any help you can offer.

Find out more/read our mission on our website: https://www.highlandwool.scot/

or follow us on facebook: www.facebook.com/HighlandWool/