AN AMBITIOUS plan to set up a new national peak body to replace Grains Council will have to overcome a lack of support from the largest state farmer organisation in NSW and WA.
A round table of grower groups has come up with a business plan to fund a body to replace the vastly diminished Grains Council, which is currently operating on a skeleton staff and only fulfilling its statutory obligations, due to funding issues.
The new national grower body proposed could comprise of up to 36 committee positions from various regional committees and policy boards.
Grains Council chairman Jamie Smith said there was a clear need for a peak body with an expanded brief.
“It is disappointing that we can only do certain things at the moment, given there’s other issues that need addressing, so we are trying to get something up that can do that.”
Mr Smith said a three-man implementation committee of Barry Large, WA; Andrew Weidemann, Victoria, and Peter Mailler, who farms on the NSW-Queensland border, would be working on fleshing out the business plan, with the idea to have a representative from the western, southern and northern cropping zones.
The plan currently focuses on a grower levy for grain deliveries, with a figure of 0.025pc mooted, which, working on a 35 million tonne crop, made up mostly of cereals at $200/t, giving a national gross of $7 billion, would give operating funds of about 1.2 million.
Mr Smith said the implementation committee would be looking at opportunities to raise the funds over the coming months.
However, the idea has not won over all state farming organisations (SFOs).
NSW Farmers Association grains committee chairman Mark Hoskinson said his organisation thought the proposal was too expensive and there was too much overlap with the brief of SFOs.
“We agree there should be some sort of peak body, but we don’t think this is the right way to go about it.
“Through much of NSW, which is in drought, I doubt farmers would be in favour of another levy, no matter how small.
“We are in favour of a low cost model, which doesn’t duplicate what is already being done, the GCA model has more staff than needed, given there are already staff working on these things at the SFO level.”
Structurally, Mr Hoskinson said NSW Farmers favoured a model that had policy creation procedures from the ground up.
Mr Smith agreed that a levy was an unpopular means to fund the organisation, but said in light of declining SFO income, it was hard to see another means of funding.
He said it was increasingly important to engage large growers.
“Arguably, the reality is, in grains the SFOs no longer represent the bulk of the grains community.
“Figures we have put together, from ABARE and GRDC reports are that SFOs only represent growers producing 15 to 30 per cent of the tonnage.
“There is a change of demographics in grain growing its becoming consolidated.
“Some of the quotes that are bandied are that, nationally, 25pc of growers represent one percent of tonnage, and the next 25pc produce 9pc of the crop.
“With this in mind, we need to engage with the larger growers, without being elitist, but we need to encourage top 20pc to engage with us.”
He said with this in mind, the claims from NSW Farmers and the Western Australian Farmers Federation (WAFF) that, as the major SFOs from the largest two grain producing states, they had a mandate to have a say in whether the set-up of a new peak body was wrong.
“SFOs are just not representing as many growers as they used to.”
Grain Growers Association chairman John Eastburn said his organisation, which has reasonable financial health, and had been touted as a potential player in a revamped peak body, had gone down a different path.
“There is a need for a peak grower advocacy body, but I am not totally convinced what I have seen so far is the right model.”
He said GGA had chosen to go down a different route.
“We have a different focus now, we are looking more at industry services, and we have let go of some of that advocacy work, to an extent.”
Mr Eastburn echoed Mr Hoskinson’s statements when he said he thought a new Grains Council should be able to run cheaply.
“You don’t need something that will cost a fortune, but you need to be able to bring a wide selection of grower representatives to the table.”
Mr Smith said he hoped a fleshed out business plan could be unveiled at the Australian Grains Industry Conference, to be held in Melbourne in July.
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