Reviving the land with regenerative farming that is transforming SA's wool industry

“The story of your garment starts long before it was an image on a designer’s mood board or written into a pattern. The story of what you’re wearing starts far away with farmers like myself,” says sixth generation sheep farmer Matthew van Lingen. 

On his farm in the Karoo, regeneration is implemented through a method known as time-controlled grazing. Herds are moved often, pastures are rested longer, and bare earth is coaxed back to life. 

“It’s not about how many animals you have. It’s about how long you graze and how long you let it recover. Animal numbers have got nothing to do with your ecosystem. It’s the time,” he says. 

Van Lingen likens it to a three-legged potjie pot: one leg for the ecosystem, one for animal health, and one for people and business. Sustainability, he says, keeps the pot standing; regeneration makes it steady enough to survive a hurricane. 

Mimicking the wild 

Speaking at Twyg’s Africa Textile Talks, Van Lingen explained that this method mimicked natural migrations that churned soil, fertilised it and then moved on, leaving plants to rebound stronger. 

The payoff was healthier sheep, finer wool and a noticeable return of insects, birds and mammals.

Many South African farmers have managed land this way for decades without calling it “regenerative farming”. Monica Ebert, business development and sustainability manager at The Woolmark Company, says the industry is working to measure the positive environmental impacts of this technique, expanding the lens beyond “carbon tunnel vision” and to a broader “nature positive” model that counts soil, biodiversity and clean waterways alongside carbon emissions. 

Water towers and wool sheds 

The same principles are at work in the Drakensberg wetlands, one of South Africa’s most diverse grassland systems, where clothing retailer H&M and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) have been working with local sheep farmers since 2021. 

H&M’s Southern Africa country manager, Caroline Nelson, said the project started with the goal of having healthier land and biodiverse landscapes in a region that feeds both rivers and cities. 

Pavs Pillay, corporate engagement and behaviour change manager at WWF South Africa, calls the grasslands “amazing environments”, rich with endemic grasses, bearded vultures, cranes and other rare species. These high altitude plains also function as “water towers” for major rivers and cities, Pillay said. Stripping them with overgrazing caused erosion, compaction and a loss of water storage, she warned. 

Closing the gap 

Pillay said the WWF-H&M project targeted farmers “irrespective of what scale of farming we are looking at”, helping them gain market access and improve yields with fewer sheep, and which fetched higher prices.

“It’s a long-term supply chain that’s very important to us,” Nelson said, pointing out that most of H&M’s wool came from South Africa.

Getting there isn’t cheap. Van Lingen said the biggest barrier was a “big capital outlay” for infrastructure like piping and fencing, with returns only coming four or five years later.

The partnership is designed to absorb that risk. The WWF provides ecological expertise and training, while H&M offers “takeoff agreements” guaranteeing buyers. Restoration work — such as alien plant clearing and wetland rehabilitation — also creates year-round jobs by tapping into local knowledge.

The overarching goal, according to Pillay, was to ensure that they safeguarded their wool resource and the environment in which it was produced, along with the communities sustaining livelihoods from it. 

Sustainable wool  

The 2024/25 wool season closed with total receipts down 1.9% from the year before, according to a Cape Wools SA market summary, as drought and global jitters kept margins tight. The Eastern Cape led output at 33.5% of receipts, followed by the Free State (18%) and Western Cape (16.9%). 

Despite this dip, sustainable wool now accounts for almost half of our output.  Merino wool still commands a premium, with prices finishing the season 3.4% higher year-on-year. 

Exports of greasy wool totalled 44.3 million kilogrammes, worth R4.44-billion, with China receiving more than 80% of our wool exports. 

A barcode for every fleece 

To secure its future, the industry is going digital. Cape Wools is building a blockchain traceability system that tags each bale with a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag, linked back to a farmer’s verified Global Location Number. 

Its aim was to collect data that was tamper-proof, anonymous where necessary, but still able to tell a product’s story from soil to store, Cape Wools CEO Deon Saayman said. South Africa is the world’s second largest apparel wool supplier and the top producer of sustainably certified wool. But buyers, and their regulators, are demanding proof that sustainability claims are backed by data. 

Saayman said Cape Wools was actively funding research to measure wool’s on-farm carbon footprint. This circularity was a way to both defend and market the “South African wool story” globally, he said. 

Proving those credentials allows brands to source from farmers who are improving their land, ensuring long-term supply for companies like H&M, and allows better market access for farmers. 

Carbon tunnel vision 

For decades, sustainability has been measured in tons of carbon avoided. Now, the wool industry is broadening the scorecard, counting not just less harm but more life. 

“We’ve decided that looking beyond net zero and towards ‘nature positive’ to be more encompassing of soil health, of biodiversity, of our waterways and to make sure we’re not just looking down that carbon tunnel vision,” Ebert said. 

The term “nature positive” was adopted because “not every wool grower will call their farming practices regenerative. They just think that’s good farming practice,” she said. 

Van Lingen sees the results in his own fields: grass where there was once dust, bushes buzzing with insects, and the return of a balanced ecosystem. 

“What’s good for business is what’s good for the animals and the ecosystems and consumers,” he said. DM