quantity over quality

In her opening speech, UNDP Resident Representative Ms. Beate Trankmann highlighted that companies are against wholesale production of cashmere, and have begun to consider the environment, livestock and livelihoods of cashmere producers comprehensively, and noted that Mongolia has the opportunity to promote the value of traditional animal husbandry—livestock herding that is close to nature.

The increase in demand has led to cashmere being produced in non-specialist cashmere factories, which focus more on volume and less on the quality of the garment and the farmers who make it.

he government says it is trying to encourage quality over quantity. But if every herder culls enough to restore the pastureland the crash in meat prices would eat away at their ability to pay off the banks. "Every herder has a loan. The more livestock you have the bigger the loan," says Batzorig, a 20-year-old, motorcycle-riding herder with a wide smile and 2m tugriks ($900) of debt, equivalent to about three months' wages in a city job. Batzorig and his younger brother have their mother to thank for cutting their dependence on the herding cycle. A few years ago, she trimmed the family animals from 1,000 to 600 and bought a house in a town.

Better herd management that includes selling off older animals for and supporting herders to access markets for goat meat, cheese and milk in conjunction with a better price for cashmere means that it is now possible to plan for less goats without compromising revenues for herders.

A more immediate and perhaps attainable goal is to convince herders to keep fewer goats. They might do so if their animals produced better cashmere, which would fetch higher prices. The project is helping herders breed better goats by providing them with in vitro fertilization and superior sperm; offering free veterinary care; and instilling better management practices, such as regularly combing the animals

"By creating cashmere that’s the exact same quality as luxury cashmere, but not using virgin fibres, it gives a chance for the herds and farmers to have a bit of breathing space and not have to create cashmere in such huge quantities.

We need large-scale breeding initiatives to raise fibre quality across the country, and we need to encourage herders to shift their focus to quality instead of quantity.

Herders can also sort their fibre into different quality categories such as age, gender, and quality. Processors are often willing to pay more for sorted fibre, and it allows herders to get premium prices for their high-quality fibre. Moving to lower yields of high-quality fibre is fundamental to the overall sustainability of Mongolian cashmere and it will help raise the profile of our cashmere to international buyers.

It would be great to see the return to traditional Mongolian breeds that are known for their low micron, long fibres. For example, the Russian don breed has been popular due to its high yield, but the fibre is thick and short, and this contributed to Mongolia’s overall decline in quality.

quantity over quality The lack of market controls has incentivized herders to produce quantity over quality. There are no significant price premiums for higher-quality cashmere, and grading processes are poor. This microeconomic frame describes breeding and production strategies that deliberately increase cashmere weight (e.g., by interbreeding goats to produce higher volumes of coarser cashmere), as opposed to the ecological competition frame (#poor-cashmere-quality-from-overgrazing).