ADF board candidates want to halt milk production decline
The three candidates for the Australian Dairy Farmers board want to turn around declining milk production in Australia.
But they have vastly different priorities for making this happen.
Incumbent ADF president Rick Gladigau, from South Australia, is facing a challenge from south-western Victorian dairy farmers Ian Morris and Glenn Britnell for a seat on the five-member board.
The three faced a Victorian Farmers Federation online forum last week to outline their case for election at the ADF's annual general meeting on Thursday.
Ian Morris, from Cobden, Vic, is fresh off having won a court case against the Victorian Farmers Federation in July.
Mr Morris launched legal action after the VFF terminated his membership while he was running for the presidency of its commodity group, the United Dairyfarmers of Victoria.
He wants to see a complete overhaul of ADF and Dairy Australia's structure.
The former World Bank economist said the industry needed to have the right framework to deal with the extensive range of issues facing it.
"The dairy industry is at a major tipping point, as the national milk pool collapses by 3 per cent per year," he said.
"Paradoxically, in recent times, we have had relatively good milk prices, reasonable seasons, except for fires and patches of drought and floods, but farmers are leaving in significant numbers with many farms being converted to alternate uses.
"This is simply not good for the industry."
Mr Morris said ADF had done some good work in addressing some of the issues facing the industry, but more needed to be done, particularly around supermarket power over processors and issues such as the commitment to net zero and social licence to operate.
ADF needed to consult more with farmers on these issues and focus on solutions while keeping farm profitability top of mind.
He said industry reform was critical to achieving this.
"Dairy leaders started the Dairy Plan process by indicating that the existing advocacy arrangements and structure were not fit for purpose and were broken," he said.
"No discernible progress on this very important set of issues and advocacy reform has been made by dairy leaders."
Mr Britnell also wants to address the decline in the industry - but he wants to do this by bringing the views of grassroots farmer to the table.
"What we see now is an industry that's in decline and we need to be able to put a put the brakes on it," he said.
Mr Gladigau staked his bid on his track record with ADF and on the need to have stability at a board level.
He pointed to the Australian Dairy Plan, the mandatory Code of Conduct and advocating for dairy to be an essential service during the COVID crisis as some of these achievements.
He pointed to more recent wins as the management of biosecurity issues this year and the development of ADF federal election platform.
He said one of the biggest issues facing the organisation was ongoing funding, something he had been working on with the past chief executive officer and the new CEO.
Board stability was a critical issue.
"I am actually the currently the longest-serving director on ADF," he said.
"We've only got five directors, and three of those were actually appointed last year, so stability to me is a big key to how ADF can continue to function."
Biggest issues facing dairy industry
Mr Gladigau nominated labour as the biggest issue facing the industry and said this was driving a lack of confidence.
"Farmers are doing long hours, and some recently have had the extra burdens of flooding and wet weather," he said.
"Some are getting on in age a bit, like me, and with no family to take over and and feeling a bit worn out.
"When we see large dairies closing down because they can't find staff, this becomes a big concern for industry.
"And smaller farms sell up due to good land prices and retire and move to beef."
Mr Gladigau said the other part of the labour challenge was the bookwork.
"Keeping up with all the IR laws, wages, super, sick leave, holiday pay and now we also have domestic violence leave added to the list," he said.
Mr Gladigau said collaboration within the industry was key.
"One of the biggest concerns is to increase Australia's milk production," he said.
"I am concerned where we are heading and what we may look like if this continues.
"There are so many pieces to this puzzle as to how to make this happen, and that's why we need a well-resourced ADF.
"We need to build confidence ... through developing relationships between our processors and farmers for a secure profitable farmgate milk price for multiple years.
"The processors can then grow with confidence to grow value and markets, plus returns.
"We need win:wins across the supply chain.
"Unity and collaboration is needed to be able to build confidence."
Mr Britnell agreed that labour was a big issue but part of a wider issue of the loss of dairy farms and dairy farmers from the industry.
"It obviously takes a lot of effort to try and turn that around when we've got influences like supermarkets and government that we have to lobby all the time," he said.
"There's no silver bullet to the scenarios but at least we can try and make sure that everyone's voices are heard on these sorts of things - to be able to work as a team."
Mr Morris said the failure of dairy advocacy across the country was the biggest issue facing the industry.
"The dairy industry needs a robust advocacy capacity, which can engage with government and the community," he said.
"The current advocacy structure is clearly not working.
"It is totally underfunded, and the sustained drop in membership of state bodies, particularly in Victoria, compounds the risk to the current advocacy capacity of the industry."
Mr Morris said he also wanted to see Dairy Australia be more accountable and high performing.
"There is also concerning skepticism among farmers, particularly as reflected in the dairy levy poll, about the accountability, transparency and benefits being derived from DA," he said.
He wants to see DA's forward five-year program of work subject to independent technical and economic evaluations, managed by ADF.
Mr Morris wants ADF restructured with all dairy farmers eligible to join the organisation.
Dairy farmer members from each state would elect representatives to ADF with voting rights equivalent to their share of the milk pool.
The ADF board would have a strong strategic role in setting priorities for DA as a Part B member of that organisation.