Guarantee a better price than AWB, wheat rivals told

COMPANIES jostling to export Australian wheat will have to prove they can pay growers more than AWB is offering, the Howard Government has warned.

COMPANIES jostling to export Australian wheat will have to prove they can pay growers more than AWB is offering, the Howard Government has warned.

The Government yesterday wrote to the companies that have applied, stressing "the time frame involved is very short" because it "wishes to reach decisions this week on all the applications currently before it".

The Australian reported this week that numerous applications to export more than five million tonnes of wheat have landed on the desk of Agriculture Minister Peter McGauran in the wake of the AWB kickback scandal.

AWB lost its right to veto the applications after the Cole report found it had been funnelling money to the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Mr McGauran was due to make a decision today on which applications would be granted, but the number of applications has forced him to delay it.

The letter says Mr McGauran "is seeking further information from all applicants", including how much they intend to pay.

Exporters must prove a "price premium above the estimated pool return" offered by AWB "and its basis, and whether this will translate into a higher net price to growers than the National Pool's Estimated Silo Returns (that is, net of storage, handling, transport and marketing costs)".

Exporters must also "qualify the impact your proposal would have on the estimated pool return" (in other words, take into account the damage done to farmers that have already delivered, at a lower price, to AWB).

The letter is signed by Russell Phillips, general manager of thegrains branch of the food andagriculture division of theDepartment of Agriculture.

The demand comes as Nationals senators Ron Boswell and Barnaby Joyce join growers in a last-minute attempt to save the single-desk system.

The senators will attend a "crisis meeting" of growers in Narrandera, NSW, today.

"I am getting a clear message from growers on the ground throughout the country that they want the single desk maintained," Senator Boswell said.

Hundreds of growers have this week attended meetings across the West Australia wheat belt, where anger about the loss of the single desk is most apparent.

The Howard Government has told growers to vote with their wheat: if they want to support AWB, they should deliver their wheat to AWB's national pool.

But only 25 per cent of this year's harvest has been earmarked for AWB. The rest is in storage.