- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Alpacas are praised as mild-mannered, fluffy camelids; their fleece lustrous and silky. But UC Davis agricultural economist Richard Sexton called business ventures aimed at selling the highly prized wool "hopeless" in a feature published today in the Chico News and Review.
Alpacas - native to Peru and Chile - look something like long-haired small llamas, but they were bred for their fiber, not as beasts of burden. Writer Alastair Bland reported in the article that cleaned, unprocessed alpaca fiber sells for about $3.50 per ounce. The average alpaca will produce seven pounds of fleece annually for 15 to 20 years, amounting to a grand total of about $6,000 of fiber in its lifetime.
“These animals are fundamentally worthless,” Sexton was quoted. “It’s a sad situation because many people dumped big money into a terrible investment.”
Prices for alpacas rise and fall with the economy, but today run about $6,000. Plus they must be fed and their medical needs met. Sexton compares the alpaca industry to a pyramid scheme.
“The only way for these people to recover the money they’ve invested is to convince others to enter the industry and believe in the value of the animals,” he said.
Local breeders interviewed for the story say their industry has a bright outlook. But Sexton believes Peruvian alpaca fleece on the American market will always be cheaper, so owning alpacas will never pay off.