 Hi, I'm Jean Miller with the National Fiber Alliance and I'm here at my farm in Whiskway Valley which is located in Houston, Minnesota. And I grew up on a dairy farm and been a farmer here the last 40-some years. And I've been a sheep farmer for that period of time and when I was on the dairy farm with my parents, I also handled the sheep there. Farmers were coming to a sheep and fiber farm tour that we had started to just give people the opportunity to see sheep, learn about wool, learn about raising sheep. And people responded very well. They were excited. So that made us excited. And some of the farmers that came to that tour indicated that they were throwing away their wool. They loved growing the sheep, loved raising the sheep, sold their extra males for market and sold the rest for market lambs or breeding stock and did their own hand spinning and some of that. So, but weren't getting rid of the wool nor maybe even finding a market for it. I knew there was a consumer-driven market starting to appear. We started to see slow fashion and fashion revolution, the fiber shed out of California. So nationally, we started seeing through social media some of the quest for sustainable fibers. And we were fortunate enough to have access to funding from SAIR, North Central SAIR, to help with our sheep and fiber farm tour that we were able to have more farms on it, about 12, provide those road signs and help the farmer with some of those expenses, as well as educate people what an incredible sustainable fiber wool is. We still had the issue of trying to sell Minnesota wool and enough of it that people could say it was a value added to their sheep production. So that's where we kind of expanded into getting additional grants for research on what did the farmer-producer feel about expanding their herd to a breed that produced meat as well as wool, value added wool, were they interested in it, what were their needs. So that was a pretty good survey response. And we found people, producers, farmers, were interested. And then the following year in 2016, we received additional funds to also ask manufacturers, the people who were making items with wool, if they were aware of this now consumer-driven market for natural fibers. We were able to find from that survey in 2016 with funding from University of Minnesota and RSDP and Mary Page funds that manufacturers were aware now that there is a consumer-driven system that they are willing to pay more for Minnesota wool and that the consumer based on university research is also willing to pay three times as much for a natural fiber. So we feel time is now to try to see if we can make this work. So we are in this year making an effort with the fellowship funding from the U of M to produce a hat and have people make an order, retailers, and also other woolen items. And they are already making these types of items. But our effort, along with Design Agency Hot House, is looking at how do we sell this Minnesota wool, brand Minnesota wool, and get an order for these textile items. If we can get an order for the items, then we can start to open the market. We're also aware of the fact that we may have to do a combination with South Dakota or Midwest to make a Midwest wool, possibly. We are really staying strong with just Minnesota wool. And we have found that we have a fair good amount of 24 micron wool, which is a nice softer wool for a textile item. We hope to incorporate the smaller farmer. We're using two farms currently that both produce 9,000 pounds. So we're hoping to eventually incorporate the smaller farmer by blending the wool that they have to meet the textile requirement or other textile items. We also have enough wool in Minnesota also for a little coarser blanket or a blanket that doesn't have the 24, but looking at 28 or so. So we're excited about the market, the possibility, and that once if we can be successful in getting this hat ordered and other textile items, and be successful at establishing a branding campaign for Minnesota wool, people will want to purchase it and then they'll want to be interested in other items made with Minnesota wool.