Lack of demand for Australian wool in recent months has seen the Eastern Market Indicator (EMI) retreat back below 1000 cents per kilogram, the lowest woolgrowers have been dealt in years.
And the general market trend is as soon as there is an increased offering, the market has difficulty absorbing extra quantities.
Last week there was an extra 6000 bales offered, but only 1267 bales were additionally absorbed, resulting in a cheaper market and increased pass-in rate.
But despite these current statistics, according to data from the Australian Wool Testing Authority (AWTA) season to date, there has been more wool sold in Australia this season compared to the previous season.
Executive Director of Wool Selling Brokers of Australia, Chris Wilcox, said there has been significant movements in supply this season including over 10 per cent of wool offered being re-offered wool.
"There has been 326,126 bales offered for sale at auctions so far this season, with 279,981 bales sold," Mr Wilcox said.
"Compared with the statistics from last season, or week 14, there were 334,705 bales offered and 270,255 bales sold.
"Of the bales offered, 11.4pc were re-offers last season.
"In other words, there has been a 2.6pc decline in the number of bales offered this season, but there have been 9726 bales, or 3.6pc more sold this season compared to last season.
The pass-in rate this season, to date, is also down from 19.3pc last season to week 14, to 13.9pc.
"The lower pass-in rate and higher total number of bales sold this season has been despite the average EMI this season of 986c/kg being 37pc lower than last season's average to week 14 of 1555c/kg."
Managing director, Schute Bell Badgery Lumby, Robert Ryan, said there is concern surrounding the industry having the ability to handle an overload of wool hitting the market if there is a substantial increase in demand.
"There is concern because producers are holding onto their wool. Nobody knows the exact figure because nobody wants to tell," Mr Ryan said.
"There is an enormous amount of wool being held and hopefully it will be fed onto the market in an intelligent way."
He said the situation has to be managed carefully.
"Most people, because we had a better season, found other income streams," Mr Ryan said.
"So they will be selling their lambs, their mutton, their surplus stock and feeding their wool onto the market as we can best advise them.
"People will want to see a better market going up and they don't want to destroy it."
According to Mr Wilcox, the numerous anecdotal reports of wool being withheld from the market and being stored on-farm would be affecting current season-to date-figures and therefore may not reflect actual production trends.
"Who know s the extend of this on-farm storage," Mr Wilcox said.
"It will make the Australian Wool Production Forecasting Committee's job harder when it comes to review its season forecasts when it meets in December."
Ceased mulesed declared wool shows biggest increase
According to the latest data from Australian Wool Exchange (AWEX), bales of wool declared as Ceased Mulesed (CM) have had the the most significant percentage increase, which is up by 82pc.
There was also a 20pc lift in the number of first-hand farm bales offered at auction with a National Wool Declaration (NWD) in the first quarter of the 2020/21 season.
There has also been a strong lift in the number of bales declared as Non-Mulesed (NM) and wool from sheep that have been mulesed with an analgesic or anaesthetic product (AA).
As a result of these changes, the proportion of wool offered at auction declared as NM was 14.1pc above the proportion in the first quarter of last season.
The proportion of wool declared as AA reached 40pc.
In total, the amount of wool declared as NM, AA or CM was over almost 58pc of the total volume of first-hand wool offered in the first three months of 2019/20.
Interestingly, there has been a 26pc lift in the number of bales of wool being offered with an NWD where the mulesing status is 'mulesed'.
Wool with an NWD lifted to 77.5pc share of the total offering.