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Key Points
- Italy-born Marika Martini worked as a ‘roustabout’ or shearing shed hand in 2017.
- She is one of a growing number of women working in this field.
- She now works as a trainer at a technical college, preparing others for the shearing industry.
The wool industry has been at the centre of popular culture including songs, books and films since European settlement.
Australia has more than 71 million wool sheep which must be shorn annually. Credit: Jason Edwards/Getty Images
According to the New South Wales Farmers’ Association, Australia now relies on just 2,800 shearers, down from 3,200 in 2012 and 10,000 in the 1980s to clip the 71 million wool sheep across all states and territories except the Northern Territory.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, there are now 1,260 women working in shearing sheds up from 698 a decade ago.
Marika Martini shearing one of her first sheep in Rawlinna, Western Australia. Credit: Marika Martini
Martini confirmed the number of female shearers was increasing.
She now works at the Western Australian College of Agriculture in Cunderdin, a small rural town 156km east of Perth, preparing students to work in the wool industry and assists them to enter national shearing and wool handling competitions.
The number of girls showing up in competitions among the new trainees is growing too and it makes me really proud.
Marika Martini
“It’s a big deal … Because during these competitions, especially in Perth and Sydney, students are competing too and they can earn their first money there,” she said.
‘In the middle of nowhere’
Martini said she had been looking for work in rural Western Australia to complete the 88 days of farm work required to renew her visa for a second year and ended up at a farm in Yealering, a small town about 200km south of Perth with a population of less than 100.
More and more women are working in shearing sheds to address labour shortages. Source: Moment RF / Stuart Walmsley/Getty Images
The busy shearing shed soon became her “whole world”, she said.
“The shearers are paid per sheep: four or five shearers can do up to 900 sheep a day. They gave me a quick explanation and threw me into the mix,” Martini added.
One of Marika Martini’s friends (R) lying on the fleece of a sheep (L) which had not been shorn for three years. Credit: Marika Martini
I just followed the rhythm of the music in the shed and tried to do my best.
Marika Martini
A “roustabout” was responsible for keeping the shearing station tidy and collecting the fleeces and as its name suggested, a “wool presser” then placed the fleeces into wool presses to form bales with each bale made up of the wool from 30-40 sheep, she said.
Wool classers sort the shorn fleeces according to quality. Credit: Jason Edwards/Getty Images
I had no idea how big this world was in Australia and New Zealand. It is a world apart.
Marika Martini
In 2021, the population of the area was just 33 people.
Marika Martini (front, R) and her shearing gang at her first job in Yealering, Western Australia. Credit: Marika Martini
“The farm was huge, in the middle of nowhere, (with) the railway a six-hour drive away,” she said.
“It was an amazing experience, I had a lot of fun. The shed had 16 stands where the shearers worked, so there were two groups working around the clock. I never thought I would have such an experience in my life,” she said.
Marika Martini cared for lambs at Rawlinna, one of Western Australia’s largest sheep stations, 900km east of Perth on the Nullarbor Plain. Credit: Marika Martini
Role as an educator
Martini said she still had a lot to learn about shearing, but that her role as educator in sheep farming today was to encourage more women to follow in her footsteps.
I want to encourage those girls who are shy or afraid to try it.
Marika Martini
