Isle of Man farmers are being forced to ‘burn’ wool sheared from Manx sheep as it is ‘not viable to ship the products to England.’

A commentator told a crowd watching a shearing demonstration at the Royal Manx Show today that the wool they saw being sheared from a sheep would ‘only be worth around 3p’.

The demonstration took place on a stage at the back of the Manx National Farmers Union (MNFU) stand.

Flanked by sign which read ‘British Wool - Supporting the Manx sheep and farming industry’, a group of show-goers watched as a sheep was sheared while farmer Michael Taggart provided a running commentary.

During the commentary, he told the crowd: ‘It’s a great shame but they [farmers] burn them this wool on the Isle of Man because it’s not worth...it’s not viable to ship them to England to put onto the open market.

‘That fleece there when it’s finished will be worth about 3p.’

Last year, it was announced that the Isle of Man government had done a deal with British Wool's collective marketing scheme to handle the sale of Manx wool.

British Wool is owned by thousands of sheep farmers and collects, grades, markets and sells the natural fiber, on behalf of producers, to the international wool textile industry.

You can watch a portion of the shearing demonstration in the video above.