THE British Wool Marketing Board is to ask producers for their ideas on future strategies.

The regional committees will issue a questionnaire asking for individual views on a number of topics, including storage and differential marketing costs for larger producers.

Frank Langrish, chairman, and Ian Hartley, managing director, both said they were not looking for immediate changes but more at long-term policies and strategies.

"We must continue to strive to be more efficient, to return as much of the sale proceeds back to producers," said Mr Langrish, "but we must also ensure that the service to them meets their requirements and expectations."

He was speaking after the board's annual conference in Bradford, held on Thursday of last week.

Regional representatives discussed some of the issues facing the board, including the difficult balance of maintaining an efficient service for producers while trying to make savings.

There was also discussion on the possible impact on sheep numbers and the volume of wool produced in Europe as a result of potential changes to the Common Agricultural Policy.

The national wool clip last season fell by 17pc from 44m kg to 36.3m kg, largely because of foot-and-mouth disease. The number of producers also fell from 71,000 to about 67,000.

At the same time, marketing costs increased by 1.6p kg to 21.3p kg because of the large drop in weight of wool and the extra costs involved in collection and storage.

Delegates were told that the board did not expect the amount of wool produced in Britain to change. Mr Langrish said production levels world-wide were extremely low.

"The Australian clip is the lowest for 50 years and, as a consequence, prices paid for fine wools have risen considerably," he said.

"If, as seems likely, we can expect to see falling sheep numbers across Europe, wool will become a niche market product and I believe wool growers world-wide should be looking to market it as such."

One encouraging fact was that more wool had so far been sold this year - 21.57m kg, about 60pc of the estimated 38m kg clip compared with 12.8m kg at the same time last year.

Prices, however, had not gone beyond 70p kg and, at present, were unlikely to rise significantly.

The fact that the Chinese market was still closed to Britain and the strength of sterling against the euro were major factors.

Mr Hartley said he and Mr Langrish had been to China and held talks with the Embassy over there. "We are trying to get the ban lifted because, if it was, the price would increase considerably," he said.

The conference was told that further cost-cutting measures would be investigated through further computerisation and mechanisation but the board felt it had probably made as many savings as it could - hence the need for producers to say what they want from the board and whether costs or level of service are the most important to them.