State farm organisations and commodity councils have been assured they will keep a "majority shareholding" in the membership of National Farmers Federation ahead of a vote in Canberra next week to change its structure and bring in corporate agribusiness.
NFF president, David Crombie, will put a new membership model to its farmer stakeholders next Thursday, attempting to bring about the first major structural change in the organisation's 30 year history.
Mr Crombie acknowledges the task won't be an easy one, with five previous attempts at structural and constitutional change over the years all unsuccessful.
But he adds this time round it has been an 18 month process of continual consultation with farmers, members and non-members, and broader industry interests, and he isn't "springing any surprises" when the proposal is put at the pre-Christmas extraordinary general meeting.
Mr Crombie said corporate agribusiness and other affiliated agricultural groups, which he would not name, would be offered a full membership class with full voting entitlements up to a certain limit.
"But the critical issue put forward to us in all our meetings with farmer groups is that we retain farmer control of NFF," Mr Crombie said.
"While new members would be offered a full membership class, the management of affairs and the organisation would remain in the hands of farmers.
"The model we are proposing and putting to our members next week would never see NFF in a position where State farmer organisations and commodity groups do not have the majority.
"We are about preserving the majority shareholding in farmer hands."
Mr Crombie acknowledged NFF's "long and deep heritage" as a representative voice for farmers which he did not want thrown away with any major structural change.
He said change was still needed to help broaden the representation of the lobby group and spread it across the agricultural supply chain, representing changes in the sector now and through until 2020.
"We need broader views in policy development, and new membership will give us that," he said.
"We need better research and better unity of purpose.
"We also need to reduce duplication in agricultural representation and look at the issues we need to tackle at the national level to ensure we are doing that as effectively as possible."
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