VFF membership chaos: Dairy farmers demand refund on milk levies

The VFF is refusing to refund milk levies it received from dairy farmers, despite introducing one-off membership payments.

Dairy farmers who overpaid their membership to the Victorian Farmers Federation want a refund.

The Victorian Farmers Federation is refusing to refund its dairy farmer members who overpaid their membership fees.

Members of the VFF’s dairy arm, the United Dairyfarmers of Victoria, have traditionally paid a levy to the federation, collected by their milk processors at a rate of $800 per million litres.

But from October 1 last year the VFF abandoned levies, replacing them with a three-tiered membership system, whereby members paid an upfront fee of $695, $895 or $1495.

VFF chief executive Brendan Tatham emailed members last October stating: “No UDV member will pay levies from now on.

“This means your milk processor will no longer collect your levy. We’ll be assisting you through this process of change.

“When you have transferred to your new your VFF-UDV membership type, we will provide you with the pro-forma to advise your processor of the changes and instructions for stopping your milk levy payment to the VFF.”

However in the midst of their peak spring milk production last year many UDV members who took up the one-off membership payment forgot to tell their processors to stop deducting the levy from their milk cheques.

Others dairy farmers said they did not receive any follow-up advice from the VFF on stopping levy payments.

UDV president Bernie Free said he paid the one-off membership, but failed to notify his processor to stop the levy until almost $1000 had been transferred to the VFF for the months of October, November and December – some of his highest production months.

“I rang up (VFF) membership and they said they couldn’t do anything about it,” Mr Free said. “Other people have told me the VFF says ‘it’s a donation’.”

“My wife and I are getting the details together to send to Consumer Affairs Victoria.”

The VFF confirmed that it does not issue refunds “as clearly outlined in our membership terms and conditions, as agreed to at the time of purchase by the member”.

“This condition is all encompassing and covers milk processor levies.”

Woolsthorpe UDV member Glenn Britnell said he paid his $764.50 ($695+GST) annual fee in November, but did not realise his processor was still deducting the VFF levy until last week.

“They (the VFF) received the payment, (but) I never received anything further to make sure I cancelled, to stop the factory taking the levy.”

Other farmers said they told the VFF to simply deduct the one-off membership fee from levies they had paid since October.