Archive for Rural business

Is AACo’s CEO Worth Less Than MLA’s CEO?

December 4, 2009 at 11:34 am · Filed under Livestock issues, MLA, MLA salaries, Rural business, farming, livestock, meat industry, rural australia, rural issues ·Tagged , , , , ,

AACo. has just announced that it’s new CEO will receive $600,000 base salary with incentives that can take it to $1,000,000. See Media Report Here
I think MLA’s CEO, David Palmer receives around $750,000 (+ expenses, of course).
How do you compare the worth and/or effectiveness of these employees? Is one worth more than the other?
Who is AACo’s CEO answerable to and how and
who is MLA’s CEO answerable to and how?
As a group listed with the ASX, AACo. must follow strict rules and guidelines on reporting to its shareholders who have invested in the company.
MLA is also a sorporate entity that must follow the rules of ASIC. (That is why only around 2.6% of Aust levy-paying producers voted in the recent MLA AGM but it is still funded by the Fed Govt See Figures here). MLA is a tax-payer funded organisation with those taxes coming from a per head fee on livestock sold (taxes) and Federal Govt funding (from taxpayers). So, the rules followed by MLA are different from those followed by AACo.
AACo. has published the salary of its new CEO. How easy is it to access the salary of MLA’s CEO?
AACO. shareholders will see the salary of their CEO paid from company revenue and his incentives paid from measurable commercial company performance. How is the performance of the MLA’s CEO measured? Is there a component that is also based upon the performance of the MLA. Is it related back to the commercial benefit to its livestock growers?
If so, how is this performance measured?
Presumably MLA is using a different set of figures its media releases that show it has only produced $0.91c per beast over 30 years of spending. See Rural Australia Analysis Here


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E.coli Cripples US Hamburger Consumer & NLIS?

October 5, 2009 at 1:44 pm · Filed under LPA, Livestock issues, MLA, NLIS, Rural business, farming, livestock, meat industry, rural australia, rural issues, supermarkets, tagging

Question: If someone can be crippled from eating bad hamburger meat (where most of Australia’s exports to the US end-up), should she be able to locate the livestock from whence it originated? And if so, is this possible?
New York Times article

The long and the short of this article is that after being crippled by the E.coli from eating minced meat from the food giant, Cargill, this poor girl attempted to back-track the meat’s pathway.  The meat was manufactured from a plethora of ground-up rubbish including some cattle meat and marketed as  “American Chef’s Selection Angus Beef Patties”. However, because it originated from a variety of animals and by-products, processed by a variety of personnel there was no hope of tracking-down the originating beasts or their ‘home’ properties. (The side issue here is that the ingredients were listed only as “beef”).

The reality is that a cattle ID system such as NLIS or LPA would not and could not have assisted this victim or others following in her eating ‘footsteps’?  Perhaps this is one of the reasons America and Japan don’t have a livestock ID system. If they don’t, then how can MLA justify Australian producers paying their levy taxes to fund one here?!


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NZ Farmers Vote Against Industry Levies

September 22, 2009 at 4:27 pm · Filed under Livestock issues, MLA, Rural business, election, farming, livestock, meat industry, rural australia, rural issues

Does this sound familiar? It’s a aged ABC Rural report but may be relevant given the forthcoming MLA vote on livestock taxes/levies.
As reported, “New Zealand lobby group Federated Farmers says wool growers voted against paying levies because they were fed up with wool prices and disenfranchised by the industry.”

“Wool research and development body Meat and Wool New Zealand will get no levies from wool growers, after a vote last week.” Read the ABC Rural report
“Federated Farmers says it’s concerned about the long term future of wool, now no-one is looking after the industry.”

Chairman Hugh Taylor says wool growers are upset with Meat and Wool New Zealand spending money in areas that didn’t help them. Heard that before?!
“I think the vote will take the shackles off [the industry] in some ways,” he says. It’s got to be market-led.
We’re going to get the industry all together and work together for the benefit of the grower.”
Hah! If only!
Do you see any parallel’s to this vote and that of the forthcoming MLA AGM and vote on Australian cattle taxes/levies?

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MLA Spends Producers’ $223 Million To Gain 91c Per Beast !

December 17, 2008 at 4:45 pm · Filed under Livestock issues, MLA, NLIS, Rural business, election, farming, livestock, meat industry, rural australia, rural issues, tagging

$223 million has supposedly been paid by Australia’s producers and spent by MLA on LPA, Flockcare, Cattlecare, MSA + …… to gain a net industry benefit, over 30 years, of $1.1 billion.  (See The Australian article here.)

$1.1 billion is about $0.91c per beast (cattle + sheep currently less than 40million head)! i.e. $1.1 billion ($1.1 thousand million) over 30 years is about $36 million each year. (I wonder how much a head that is when inflation etc is taken into account?)
However, what does this mean if the QA programs affecting meat quality aren’t being used?! (See Some figures on MSA non-usage here).

What benefits have Australia’s producers received from this cost? Let’s hope someone like CEO of MLA, David Palmer or Brad Bellinger, Chair at Australian Beef Association (ABA), can enlighten us.

David Palmer said the program has three quality systems for beef and sheep meat.
It began with beef in 1996, and aimed “to dramatically boost meat-eating quality”. Mr Palmer said it had evolved into a “world-leading quality assurance system from farm to consumer”.

Mr. Palmer states that QA systems have resulted in the consumer benefiting from better eating quality meat.

However, as only a bare proportion of producers use the meat quality QA programs (none use MSA in Victoria, apparently!), Australia’s farmers must be improving their meat without MLA’s programs – something Mr. Palmer didn’t clarify.  Which means the programs can’t be accounting for the improved eating quality, which means producers are paying for QA programs that cost them via their MLA taxes (levy) but don’t achieve anything.

And let’s not forget that it has been proven time and again that producers aren’t receiving any additional income from this $223 million cost either. So, if this is the case, what is happening to the supposed magnificence of the $0.91c per beast?!

Related link – NZ Farmers Vote-Out Levies

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