Farmers Allan and Sarah Campbell put forward alternative to Australian Dairy Plan

Allan Campbell and his daughter Sarah, an experienced corporate and dairy consultant, have devised an alternative to the Australian Dairy Plan, dubbed the Wannon solution.

FARMERS were often told that “all options were on the table” with the Australian Dairy Plan, Allan Campbell says.

But the Branxholme farmer said many primary producers were never invited to the decision-making dinner party.

“You heard it since the start of the Dairy Plan process, from people like (Australian Dairy Farmers president) Terry Richardson — all options are on the table,” Mr Campbell said.

“It was repeated over and over. But it wasn’t true. The people who wrote up this plan had a pre-arranged idea of what they wanted, there was the theatre of consultation but in the end, the Dairy Plan is exactly what they wanted — with processors getting even more say over the Australian dairy industry.”

Mr Campbell entered the dairy industry nearly five decades ago in New Zealand before moving to Australia in 1998, establishing a farm at Branxholme, near Hamilton in southwest Victoria.

He said the power and profitability of average dairy farmers had been eroded since deregulation, a trend exacerbated by the multinational buy-up of processors.

Mr Campbell’s daughter Sarah, an experienced corporate and dairy consultant, has devised an alternative to the Dairy Plan, dubbed the Wannon solution.

“In my experience successful transformations bring people, like our grassroots farmers, on the journey of the process,” Ms Campbell said.

“They must be able to ask the hard questions because this allows the outcome to evolve and for individuals to buy-in and have ownership; which is critical to the success of restructuring our dairy advocacy model. I have seen none of this to date in the process of the ADP.”

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