Why doesn’t Agforce care for its members and their stock?
One would have thought that a farmers’ representative body would be doing all it can to assist farmers and the welfare of their stock. This should be the case whether the issue is one of animal welfare, fire, drought or flood affected conditions, marketing, sale prices etc
It seems that Executive Committee Member of Cattle Council and AgForce spokesman Peter Hall’s comments dismissing fodder drops to flood marooned stock in Qld amount to a poorly concealed attempt to disguise the fact that AgForce has sat on their hands on this very important animal welfare and property viability issue.
As ABA Chairman, Brad Bellinger stated, “AgForce seems to be oblivious to the welfare duty of care graziers have to their stock and this translates to encouraging and assisting individuals where ever practical, to provide the best standard of animal husbandry. This ranges from humane shooting to fodder drops where possible.”
“AgForce also got it seriously wrong when they claimed that marooned Gulf Country cattle are helicopter shy and would rather risk drowning than accept fodder drops”.
I have seen the pictures of the Clermont floods illustrating that starving stock is more likely to rush to the descending hay than gallop away.
”The AgForce spokesman is plainly wrong considering the photographic evidence Mr Nelsons has provided to the ABA”, added Mr Bellinger.
What concerns me is that groups like MLA, Agforce, NFF, ACC et al all seem to be taking the same sort of dismissive line with respect of the member producers they are supposed to be representing.
What makes them seem to constantly display scant respect for their constituent producer members while simply ploughing-on with their snouts in the trough of public funding? It is beyond me, I am afraid.
Could it be that for some reason, the corruption in ‘high places’ that was commonly accepted in the ‘good ole days’ has returned or perhaps never really left us. Could it be that, the old corruption drivers of social standing, a better future job and political rewards, are once again to the fore? When you think about it, this could possibly sadly be the case.
The extraordinary rise in power of Retailers (Supermarkets), wholesalers (Processors) and celebrity of politicians has come at the same time as the phenomenal decrease in power of producers. Think about some of the decisions made by the aforementioned producer ‘membership’ executives and you might like to think again.
What do you think?
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