David Jochinke, Tony York, Georgie Somerset: Who will lead the NFF next?
Meet the six primary producers who could become the next president of Australian agriculture’s most powerful advocacy body.
The jostling has already begun for who will become the next head of the powerful National Farmers’ Federation after president Fiona Simson steps down in October.
While the NFF board has appealed for quiet on the issue in an attempt to ensure Simson does not become a “lame duck” president for the last six months of her term, already front runners are emerging.
Several “outsiders” or left-of-field candidates are also considering a tilt at the top job in Australian agriculture.
While there is no prerequisite for incoming presidents to already sit on the six-member board, three of the top contenders are already NFF directors. All have also been, or still are, heads of their respective state farmer organisations.
It is widely expected that Wimmera grain grower and sheep farmer David Jochinke, who has been NFF vice-president to Simson for the past six years and is a former leader of the Victorian Farmers Federation, will slide into the top job in the name of continuity and stability.
But former WA Farmers president and Tammin grain and sheep producer Tony York, who was the first farmer from Western Australia for 20 years to sit on the NFF board when he became a director in late 2018, has also publicly thrown his hat into the ring as a formidable challenger.
Cattle producer Georgie Somerset, the head of Queensland main producer body AgForce, is not publicly commenting on her intentions. But it is widely believed she will stand for the NFF vice-presidency; a position that would enable her to also remain as current AgForce chief.
Outsiders also considering a run for the presidency include feisty straight-talking VFF president and Gippsland vegetable grower Emma Germano, the well-liked former chair of GrainGrowers Australia Brett Hosking and Indigenous South Australian farmer, NFF director and president of Australian Women in Agriculture Natalie Sommerville.
The only requirement for any candidate considering standing for the positions of NFF president or vice-president at its 2023 national conference and annual general meeting in Canberra in late October is that they are nominated by one of the 37 member organisations or commodity groups that sit beneath the NFF umbrella. It is assumed they will be a farmer or primary producer.
Nominations are called for just 35 days before the pivotal October 25 AGM; one reason, says NFF chief executive Tony Mahar, that he believes the current speculation and elbowing among potential contenders now is unproductive.
“I don’t doubt there is considerable interest in the job – it’s a very high-profile position – but the real test is the capacity to take it on; it’s become almost a full-time job,” Mahar says.
“To do it well you have to have some serious skills and strengths and people shouldn’t underestimate the difficulty of the job in keeping all industry sectors and states happy at the one time.
“And as Fiona departs, the bar has been set very high.”
Mahar says it is natural agricultural organisations and advocacy bodies across the nation are now thinking about how the changes, reforms and initiatives Simson has championed can be continued.
“We can’t have another Fiona Simson (as president), there is only one,” Mahar says, wryly.
“The discussion instead should be around what characteristics and skills did Fiona have – things like collaborative style, authenticity, media skills, positive solution-seeking, ability to step up on the international stage – that made her leadership of the NFF such a success, and how do we then replicate or continue that.”
Vice-president David Jochinke, 45, confirmed to AgJournal that he would love to be the next NFF president, after being on the board for nine years, and vice-president for nearly six years.
He is certainly already considered the front runner, a safe set of hands who has acted in the role while Simson has been overseas, and who is well across all the big issues such as workforce shortages and the push to reduce carbon emissions.
“I’ll be standing; my intention is to give it everything I’ve got,” says Jochinke, from his 3000-hectare farm at Murra Warra, north of Horsham, during sowing.
“I’ve got very clear intentions to take over from Fiona (Simson); while she has been an extraordinary leader in being able to share a vision that has unified the sector and been able to get it to move on some difficult issues (such as climate change), there are a lot of challenges still ahead for the next generation too.”
Tony York also recently told The Weekly Times he was keen to contest the top job.
“I’ve been considering it,” York said. “I’ve got to work out if there’s support for me and if I can (juggle it) alongside my wife, family and business. Only one person has done it from WA before, the founding president Don Eckersley, 40 years ago.”
Brett Hosking, who farms crops not far from David Jochinke at Quambatook in Victoria’s Mallee, confirmed several organisations have approached him to run for NFF president.
Progressive Hosking, who is currently deputy chair of Farmers for Climate Action, said he would need to ensure he had the numbers to back his candidacy, before throwing his hat formally into the ring.
Victorian Farmers Federation president Emma Germano, a youthful 39, said she was not sure the timing was right for her to step into the national arena, as she was only halfway through a significant reform agenda she put in place at the VFF and had just been re-elected president for a second term.
Germano, who is frank about never having been part of the agripolitics “boy’s club”, also makes it clear that if she has a tilt at the NFF presidency, it will not be on a platform simply to hold the ship on its current course, but instead be looking to rock the boat.
“I strongly believe the NFF needs to evolve in the way it is structured; Fiona has been phenomenal at building support and this sense of all (37 member organisations and bodies) being a big family all inside the NFF tent, but we now need to streamline the way these resources are used, and the way money flows,” says the always-blunt Germano.
“There’s a lot of inefficiencies and duplication in the current system; we need to have a stronger advocacy flow, more thoughtful and robust policy work with more outcomes using less money as farmer numbers dwindle.
“We have to ask the tough questions; there is conservatively $600 million sitting on the balance sheets of all state farmer organisations and the NFF; are farmers getting good value and serious outcomes for their money or just motherhood statements?”
Amid the speculation about her successor, Simson says her focus for the next six months until her terms ends is on ensuring the NFF remains a stable, well-governed organisation. Simson points out that in the past six months she has been away from Australia a great deal in her NFF presidency role – to Europe with Agriculture Minister Murray Watt, to Egypt for the COP climate change conference, to Pakistan in her role as chair of Australian Centre for International Agriculture Research and to New York to speak at the UN water summit. A trip to China with the federal government on trade issues is also on the cards.
While not backing any candidate specifically, Simson says vice-president David Jochinke has admirably filled in during her absences, and that she would support him if he decides to stand as her replacement.
But she would also love to see female contenders – many of whom she has mentored and fostered through the NFF’s pioneering Diversity in Leadership program – in the mix.
“The NFF at the moment has a very high profile, so I suspect the (presidency) will be hotly contested,” Simson says. “But there is no conveyor belt, no foregone conclusion, the decision has nothing to do with me or the board; it is voted on by member organisations based on the size of their membership base.
“I have made this role my own (for seven years) and I was the first female president; so I know there is a feeling (amongst some members) that the next president has to be just like me.
“But it don’t think that is right. I want them to be come in and take the NFF to the next level, bringing their own character, spark and probably different emphasises to the position.”
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