October 22, 2009 at 1:31 pm
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Do you have a ‘pet’ issue at the moment or are there a couple that have you running mad or very frustrated?
How would you rate the possible options I can see for the general Australian producer ?(You can have more than one choice).
It would be interesting to see whether people see these as real issues. And can you provide real solutions for your ‘pets’? Given Australia’s producers are certainly a minority group, I think we are going to have to use some creative thinking to work with the rest of the Community. Otherwise, their sheer numbers will outvote us in a democracy! Or perhaps you think some of these are just ‘beat-ups’ by journo’s needing stories that will work themselves out like most things eventually.
How do you see it? Perhaps you think there should be some others e.g. Free university education…etc
What do you think?
Please leave your comment below.
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?
August 19, 2009 at 11:56 am
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While Elders may have tidied-up some of its debt, apparently it still has a large whack to go. i.e. It has sold-off the AACo stake, sold-off the auto business, and now also sold-off the Insurance business. And still has large debt! Gee, makes you wonder why people at the top of these companies responsible for getting them into these situations are ever lauded at industry events, doesn’t it!
The remaining debt is still concerning the analysts. And if that’s the case and there’s not a lot left to sell and not a lot of free cash-flow to deal with the debt replayments, then perhaps on a local level it’s not even as well off as your family-owned local independent. Will there be pressure applied to the local Elders agencies from where all of the cash has to come now that it’s not getting any more from other sources? And if so, what form will the pressure take?
A few other thoughts here too. Elders is listed on the ASX which brings with it more pressures. ie. It has just appointed a new COO and new CIO. These might be necessary for large organisations but their costs, along with that of the CEO, the various adminstration staff, office leasing costs etc etc add to the burden for which the local independent doesn’t need to account.
Before their ‘troubles’ both Elders and Landmark had begun their ‘fee-for’service’ models. e.g. $2.50 per ear-tag added and $2 per head for scanning. And I guess in a user-pays, capitalistic economy, that’s a fair thing if you want to cover your costs and be sure you can keep your business alive. The header mechanic doesn’t fix your rig and hold-over payment til the crop cheque is in, so why shouldn’t the agent be paid as they go. What this approach may affect however, is whether the value is in the 5.5% selling fees if it’s just covering loading and sale day.
Agforce is right to advise consumers that they are headed for even higher costs if the fuel rebate is scrapped. Agforce on fuel costs
However, they are stuck between a rock and a hard place, aren’t they as we should be more focussed on the current rip-off by processors and retailers. Australia’s meat is purchased at the lowest cost in the developed World and sold at the highest! Click for the facts
While it’s all very well for MLA to advertise to increase consumption, I would prefer they work on removing the rip-off. It must be difficult for them though when they are representing both producers and the processors ripping them off!
What do you think?
Please leave your comment below.
Chairman of the Australian Beef Association and wool producer, Mr Bellinger has congratulated The Australian Wool Innovation Board (AWI) for giving wool producers some long awaited commonsense, with their decision to continue marketing wool from mulesed sheep past the 2010 deadline.
The message Mr. Bellinger and the ABA have supported is, “If you want wool from unmulesed sheep – then pay for it.’ Read more from ABA here
Will more buyers mean more competition for meat stock? One must assume CostCo didn’t get to its leading supermarket position by paying a premium for its product. If that is the case, then presumably they must believe that, 1. There is a market in Australia with enough volume for them to make a good profit. 2. They are going to be able to source ‘product’ to sell at a good enough buy price to make a good profit.
This begs the obvious questions that farmers should/will be asking. Will there be additional competition to drive-up prices?
Will the standard of meat be below that currently provided? If the answer to these questions is, “No”, then how will the CostCo margins be gained in order to compete with such a strong existing duopsony? (2 dominating buyers) What do you think?
Please leave your comments below.
February 9, 2009 at 12:07 pm
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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.
January 28, 2009 at 1:59 pm
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President Obama’s first action as President was to curb the effect of ‘jobs for the boys’. He has limited lobbying by former government staffers and the employment of lobbyists into government roles.
A pertinent Australian example is the history of the 3 most recent and current NFF Chairmen (with information gleaned from the Aust. Beef Association). They are Donald McGauchie, the next Chairman, Peter Corish and the current Chairman, Mr David Crombie.
This example also highlights the effect corporate nepotism has had on levy-based funds supposedly set-up to assist farmers .
ABA Chairman, Brad Bellinger has said that farmers have shown their disillusion at the policies of NFF, by withdrawing their memberships in droves.
Mr Bellinger continued, “The NFF by being in Canberra has been staffed by people who climbed the Canberra bureaucracy ladder and forgot about the wellbeing of their members, as they tried to please those in power. They also quickly aligned themselves with the Business Council of Australia.
Their support for the introduction of the GST at the time astonished Senator Harradine, who said that it was the first occasion he had seen a body support the taxing of its members. The NFF received $15 million from the then Government in appreciation of their support.
The CEO’s of NFF have a tendency for promotion into top paying employment, or a path is laid for them to enter Parliament.
Donald McGauchie worked with the Government on the wharf dispute and was rewarded with a seat on the Reserve Bank Board and Chairmanship of Telstra. Telstra has subsequently treated the needs of farmers with scant disregard.
The next NFF Chairman, Peter Corish supported the Government in the move to the Free Trade Agreement with the USA, which has already greatly increased our trade deficit with the US.
After retirement, Mr Corish worked closely with a former supermarket CEO to raise $300M and float the public company (Prime Ag). Establishing such close business arrangements, it was not surprising then that the NFF was reluctant to be critical of the supermarkets against producers in the recent ACCC Grocery Inquiry.Mr Corish has reportedly now sold some of his own country to Prime Ag for an apparently substantial profit.
The current Chairman of NFF, Mr David Crombie, a former National Party preselection loser, has just recently organised 40% of funding and voting to go to corporate sponsors in order to gain more funding for the financially strapped NFF. Unfortunately, as Mr Bellinger has said, despite the NFF being originally established to represent farmers, like the MLA, it is now more closely aligned with corporate Australia (including the producers’ natural enemy, the supermarket processors – Ed). One has to wonder whether Mr. Crombie has a personal end-goal that is at odds with that of the NFF’s membership!
To further ememplify the dire situation that has resulted from the unholy alliance between the head of a farmer representative body and its members’ competitors, the farmers’ Levy Reserve Fund (under the management of the Red Meat Advisory Council (RMAC)) is showing a substantial loss. (And as the loss is for the year ended 30th June 2008, therefore RMAC cannot use the current financial crisis as their excuse for the losses).
“The Levy Reserve Fund has dropped from $51 million in June 2007 to $44.5 million in June 2008” – ABA Chairman, Brad Bellinger.
Mr Bellinger said, “This money was originally collected as levies by the Australian Meat and Livestock Corporation (AMLC), the predecessor of Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA). It was then placed in a fund by the then Primary Industries Minister John Anderson to be managed by RMAC.
The plan was to keep the Fund intact and fund the Peal Councils from the investment dividends.We now see despite substantial losses in the Fund, the Peak Councils keep asking for more; further decimating the capital.
Mr Bellinger continued, “Even while this loss was occurring, disbursements to the Peak Councils that were only ever supposed to come from fund dividends, increased by over $470,000 of an increase of over 20%.The Australian Meat Industry Council (AMIC) received an additional $187,134 bringing their total payments to $1,001,641 while the Cattle Council Australia (CCA) received an increase of $127,495, bringing their total payments to $682,421.
Some of this money also finds its way to the NFF as the Peak Councils also pay a membership fee to this organisation.With the NFF now contemplating selling its soul to the corporate world and deserting the Family Farmer who was the purpose for the levy’s origins, Mr. Bellinger said that, “this unaccountable back door flow of family farmer’s compulsory levies lacks transparency and is totally unacceptable“.
It’s hard to disagree with Mr. Bellinger and the ABA that, “ The Peak Councils have done little to improve the profitability of the Australian livestock producer and should not be funded by milking the (levy) Reserve Fund dry.The assets of levy payers must be protected”. (For more see research showing levy taxes are wasted here).
Is it worth wondering whether the whole levy system should be over-hauled and re-evaluated on a more equitable basis, (especially if levies aren’t really increasing production throughput nor increasing real farm prices)?
Wool buyers aren’t able to sell mulesed wool to fabric suppliers of large garment makers because consumers just won’t buy such product. This could be considered as a type of QA requirement on wool producers. In fact, it is probably the most potent direct QA requirement we have seen.
For more see this article or the previous Rural Australia mulesing article.
At first glance, this type of wool QA might seem to be relevant to the MSA and LPA QA contraints MLA has attempted to foist on meat producers for so many years. However, anti-mulesing is being actively promoted by consumers whereas meat QA is not being activately sought by consumers.
After many years of MLA promotion only about 4.8% of meat killed in 2007 was MSA.(If around 600,000 head are MSA and the total market kill is currently around 13million – The Weekly Times Nov 3, 2008) This leaves around 95% non-MSA. So, the vast majority of meat being consumed is non-MSA.
In fact, MLA recently stated (The Weekly Times Nov 3, 2008) that Australian meat exports are expected to hold-up because of the strong $US dollar. Where does MSA fit here? Probably in the same dark place as NLIS i.e. No country except Australia even talking about it now – despite MLA’s best efforts to promote it internationally (using producer funds, of course!)
Cattle Care and Flock Care failed and Victorians have led the pack in just jacking-up and saying “No” to MSA totally, apparently!
These figures show that in reality, QA is actually wasting valuable producer funds. If consumers want it, don’t worry, like mulesing, they’ll let us know.
CAAB is happily extending its MSA-backed (and presumably MLA sponsored) program and good luck to it. However, it is a niche branded product that doesn’t supply even a lion cub’s share of the market, let alone a lion’s share! If groups like CAAB require MSA then those producers wishing to participate are free to do so. We need to support enterprises like CAAB, however, it’s just not fair that those producers not wishing to do supply to CAAB should have to pay MLA to manage MSA systems for niche brands like CAAB.
LPA is the last QA vestige left for MLA (and its cohort processors) and it only surives because it (illegally?)forces producers to pay MLA to use an NVD form they had already been using from a different source for several years anyway.
So, is mulesing QA analagous to that for meat? I don’t think so!
What do you think?
Please leave your comment below?
October 13, 2008 at 1:39 pm
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Ever thought of your cattle or sheep as ‘Free Range”?
Here is an example of how not all farmers fit the perception of them as ‘red-neck’, ‘I need to bugger the environment to feed you city slickers’, cranks.
David Graham may be best known for his roles in Big Brother and Dancing with the stars, but his core livelihood is sheep meat farming.
He says that,
”Free range lamb is a natural product – unlike fed-lock lambs, which are kept in a small yard and fed continuously.
Mr Graham and his ‘paddock to plate’ group believe that Dorpers are a breed of lamb to watch: the kangaroo of the meat industry that Ross Garnaut is talking about in terms of lower emissions.
”Australia has to get smarter breeds on the land and this is one solution,” said general manager Peter Athey.
They also found that cutting out the middle man and selling direct worked best from a financial perspective. The auction markets gave their farmers only $26 a lamb while the supermarkets valued the same animal at $300. (Ed’s note: Perhaps this is more an indictment on the existing sales systems than anything!) Read More of ,The Age article here….
Do you think the main take-out from this article is that; 1. A new sales system is needed to give producers better value? 2. Farmers can make money and control their own destiny? 3. Farmers can afford to actively respect the environment and their stock? 4. Something else?
