Wool also under control

1996/04/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Abeltzaintza
• Nekazaritza

Food quality control has been of great importance in recent years. Examples of this trend are the products that can be found with the label glued in the markets of Euskal Herria, such as homemade chicken, Alava potato or Gernika peppers. This trend has not only been imposed among us, but also complain of control outside it, as is the case of New Zealand. And there, besides food, they want to control the quality of wool.

Until now the shepherds received the same compensation for good or bad wool, so they showed no passion for quality. From now on, by government mandate, it will be controlled by passing through the scanner to all the dogs. In the words of engineers who have developed this technology, the fleece will be explored by laser rays, obtaining three complementary images. Each image will analyze the different types of sheep skin defects, such as holes, scars or fluorescent areas representative of the black pudding.

Although the process seems complicated, the mission of laser beams is very simple: detect defects that human vision cannot detect in the vacuum through machines. In a single screen the three images will be joined and the inspector will be able to examine the fleece in six seconds. Subsequently, according to the judgment of the laser beams, they will be placed the corresponding quality label. From now on, New Zealand shepherds will have to work hard to get the best fleece, since, unlike the above, what is paid is now going to be quality.