The cost to goats behind your cashmere sweater 


Suffering for the luxury of cashmere  

Cashmere is the ultra-fine soft undercoat hair from the cashmere goat, used for the making of the luxury clothing material. The fibre is even finer than the Merino wool and is, therefore, ideal for high-end soft fabrics like sweaters and scarves.

About Cashmere

Cashmere goats are originating from Kashmir (India-Pakistan frontier in the western Himalayas), however, there is no actual specific “cashmere goat” breed. Most goats produce the soft undercoat, but for cashmere production, only the breeds that grow very long wool are used. The cashmere wool is obtained by shearing or combing – with latter being the traditional albeit labor-intensive way. The undercoat has to be separated from the upper hair and by combing the goats, rather than shearing them, it is possible to produce a very high valued product1. For the fibre to be defined as cashmere, there are special criteria set by the industry, that vary from country to country in details, but in principle, the fibre should be finer than 19.5 µ and be longer than 3.2 cm. So, even though many goats have the undercoat, not all goat undercoat can be classified as cashmere.

Where is Cashmere Produced?

  • The finest as well as the most expensive cashmere wool is produced in China, which accounts for more than 65% of the whole production. Along with Mongolia and Tibet, it attributes to over 90% of cashmere production. Smaller quantities are also produced in Afghanistan, Iran, and even Australia and New Zealand2, 3.Production has fallen by 10% during the past few years due to severe winter conditions. China is also attempting to control goat numbers because of overgrazing that causes desertification.
  • Traditionally, as it is mostly the case in China and Mongolia, they harvest the cashmere by combing the goats in spring when they are molting or by collecting the molted fibers from the ground and nearby bushes. In other countries, like Iran and Australia, they normally just shear the animals2.

What Are the Welfare Concerns for Cashmere Goats?

Around 20,000 tonnes of cashmere is produced each year, and over a hundred million of cashmere goats suffer greatly as a part of this industry: painful shearing process, a negative or a non-existent human-animal relationship, overgrazing issues and neglected basic needs of the animal are just some of the problems that go hand in hand with the use of cashmere.

FOUR PAWS calls for...

Ban on the painful shearing procedures

During the sheering process, goats (who are natural prey animals) suffer severe distress being pinned down while shorn or combed. The animals are handled by humans but are not used to human contact or have only experienced negative interactions so far – including fear, distress and suffering. Quite often rough handling occurs, and the prolonged restraint of the animals is a big mental stressor for the animals that are natural prey animals. The restrain can also inflict physical pain to the animal due to their aversive reactions as well as distress to pregnant animals in recumbency. Workers are time-constricted and are working quickly and carelessly, not providing any pain relief to the animals that are inevitably injured in the overtly rushed shearing process. Depending on weather conditions, animals may even die because of the cold as they do not have a layer of fat on them or the wool to protect them from cold and rain after the shearing/combing process4.

Improvement of the human-animal relationship

the goats should not be neglected and should not have only negative interactions with the humans

  • Neglect: Since goats are very tough animals that survive in various harsh environmental conditions, there is (possibly) the attitude that these animals can be kept with a low-management effort. This leads to neglect and well-being problems with parasite infestation, becoming prey of wild animals and lacking veterinary/health care in case of acute injury, disease, or calving difficulties. The neglect of the animals also worsens the already harsh winter conditions, as they are left on their own to fend against the scarce food and water sources.
  • Poor human-animal interactions: In addition to neglect, no positive human-animal relationship is established, which causes great shyness towards humans and their handling when combing or shearing makes the very stressful situations for the animals even worse. The animals only experience mostly negative interactions with humans, and they are probably not even seen as sentient beings by herders and farmers, but just as a means of income.

Containment on the overgrazing issue

  • Unlike sheep and other grazing animals, goats dig out and eat the roots along with the flowers with seeds, both needed for further growth of the plants on the steppe. This causes many environmental (desertification, soil erosion, higher temperatures) and conservation issues (wildlife animals, like the snow leopards and gazelles are not fit to live in a desert5) along with problems, concerning the animals themselves. As the animals eat more plants that can grow back naturally, herders have to compensate the lack of feed with buying additional fodder which is not an appropriate diet for the animals that need to browse for their food as a part of their natural behaviour. Because of higher temperatures, goats also produce a lesser quality wool as there is no need for them to grow that much of their undercoat to keep them warm in the winter6. All this causes financial issues for the farmers, who, in return, increase their herd numbers, resulting in an even bigger overgrazing problem. But not all farmers and herders compensate the lack of grazing material with fodder and that results in very poor nutrition available to the animal, resulting in high mortality rates. The desertification also means that there are less water sources available for the animals, along with a higher pressure for predation from other animals.

Higher standards during transport

Various abuses are known about the long-distance transport some animal have to endure, such as dehydration due to lack of water supply, diseases, and injuries to the animals due to rough handling, inappropriate bedding and overloading of animals.

Higher standards during slaughter

The natural life-expectancy of a goat is ten years, but most goats in the cashmere industry are killed well before then, as soon as they are deemed no longer ‘profitable’ and if they do not produce good quality wool, that can already happen at a young age. The animals are then often slaughtered without prior stunning and after experiencing yet another poor human-animal interaction by being rough handled.

Ban on painful mutilations

Like other farm animals, cashmere goat can be subjects to painful mutilations. While not very often, as the farmers find use in the horns, they are occasionally dehorned anyway. All this is usually done without any pain relief, which makes it completely inacceptable. Learn more about mutilation of farm goats here.

We Need More Compassion in Fashion! 

To make more sustainable and animal-friendly choices, you could consider buying secondhand clothing and purchasing from charity shops. If you are buying brand new clothing, you can choose sustainable alternative textiles, you can find out more in our animal-friendly shopping guide.


Over six billion animals are exploited for fashion and textiles every single year. Animal-free clothing is the ultimate kind and cruelty-free fashion and making carefully considered decisions is a great step towards achieving a kinder wardrobe. 

Make a conscious choice about the clothes that you wear and #WearItKind by avoiding Cashmere wool products.

Wear It Kind

Take the pledge to #WearitKind

help us work towards an animal-friendly fashion future!

sign now