Advocacy groups have failed grassroots voices

The Australian Dairy Plan has ignored farmers’ feedback, argues Bernie Free.

Turning point: Dairy farmers have voiced their concerns and want representative bodies to take notice. Picture: Zoe Phillips

THE Australian Dairy Plan offers opportunity to address the wrongs of the Australian dairy industry.

Disappointingly, I need to address ADP’s failure to listen to the wishes of grassroots dairy farmers. Its claims of “grassroots led” and having “all cards are on the table”, have been false.

Driven by people who have been responsible for a 25 per cent reduction in production, a profitable industry creating thousands of jobs throughout the dairy chain has been needlessly decimated.

Southwest Victoria has many dairy businesses closing, with those remaining questioning the effectiveness of their advocacy groups Victorian Farmers Federation, United Dairyfarmers of Victoria and Australian Dairy Farmers.

Dairy farmers demand change. They want their advocacy presidents to listen and act on their wishes.

The four chairs of ADP and state presidents have manipulated feedback from grassroots farmer meetings to enable processors to sit within the same organisation.

Their reasoning is that as farmers have questioned the sanity of spending thousands of dollars on advocacy, paying stipends for ineffective inadequate leadership that does not deliver, they would be happy for processors to come into a new combined organisation, effectively taking control. Farmers say “no, that is not what we said at 25 farmer meetings”.

While processors and dairy farmers need each other to survive and prosper, processors have a fiduciary duty to shareholders to pay the lowest price they can. As two separate organisations, dairy farmers and processors can work together for the mutual benefit of the industry while keeping each other in check.

The Wannon Solution delivers control and representative accountability to grassroots dairy farmers, with any required expertise being employed in an accountable manner. It brings transparency and governance at every stage; credibility, which the ADF, VFF and UDV lack.

It enables all the dairy farmers of Australia to regain control of the wagging tail that is Dairy Australia, a mammoth that has been enjoying millions of dollars from taxpayers, levies from farmers with no accountability.

Bernie Free is a dairy farmer from Winslow in southwest Victoria

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