Mandatory Dairy Code needs further changes over coming 12 months
The Federal Department of Agriculture has said that the Mandatory Dairy Code is "working as intended" in its first mandated review of the Dairy Code. Surely the question is whether this is good enough.
We do not oppose the suggested recommendations within the report. Indeed we welcome them and we call upon the Federal Government to implement them immediately.
Yet the report also states that, in referring to the ACCC review of the dairy industry that there is 'market failure'. When will this be addressed? Farmgate prices might be good now but for how long?
Dairy farmers need the Code to be more than "working as intended". Dairy farmers want a Code that continues to adapt to its environment and ensures that is able to be enhanced to grow with the dairy industry over time.
This is what we need the Code to be - a mechanism that enables dairy farmers to engage with their processors to ensure a strong and transparent farmgate price. We want an Australian dairy industry that will grow not stagnate.
To do this we need dairy stakeholder support, we need government initiatives and above all, we need dairy farmers and processors to work constructively together so that the Code can continue to be more than "working as intended".
The report, based upon submissions and consultation that occurred over the past 12 months, has shown that government and dairy industry players can work constructively as we guide the Code to new levels of accountability and dairy growth. This needs to continue and the Department's dairy consultative group needs to be reconvened and that positive engagement continued.
This will ensure that our messages are heard and where they can, acted upon in a timely manner and in the best interests of dairy farmers.
Having said this, there is a third player in the supply chain that seems to be ignored. Supermarkets and retailers should no longer play a role outside the operations of the Code.
Dairy is quite different to other agricultural commodity groups and the Code could provide greater certainty for dairy farmers and processors within the dairy value-chain, especially if the Code is extended to include their interactions with supermarkets. The protections afforded to fresh food farmers within the Food and Grocery Code are not providing the safeguards needed.
It is about looking at what works and finding ways for a constructive way forward. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. Examples and precedents lay in Codes already in existence and operation, especially clauses within the Franchising and Sugar Codes.
Members of eastAUSmilk are here ready for the challenge. All those in government and elsewhere need to do is call upon us.
Shaughn Morgan – Co CEO eastAUSmilk