The head of the national woolgrower body said anybody who had had any experience with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals would realise that “you cannot negotiate or co-operate with this group, as their only aim is to put farmers out of business”.

“Our customers have asked the wool industry to find alternatives to mulesing by 2010 and we are doing this on the basis of their expectations and sound animal welfare principles,” Mr Hamblin said.

He accused PETA of trying to undermine of the most promising alternatives to mulesing – breech clips – which he said made little sense if they were really interested in seeing progress.

“If PETA were genuine about improving animal welfare outcomes, they would recognise the scientifically demonstrated welfare benefits of the clips over mulesing,” Mr Hamblin said.

“Professor Paul Hemsworth from the University of Melbourne has independently proved this to be true.”

Mr Hamblin said the peace offer had been made to Australian Wool Innovation which as a research and development organisation had no capacity to agree to such a deal.

“It is not the role of AWI to set industry policy and they could not enforce such a deal anyway, so PETA are barking up the wrong tree,” Mr Hamblin said.

Full story on the detail in the May 8 issue of Stock & Land.