Boardroom rebels
NSW farmer and NORCO director Heath Cook, who milks a 320-cow herd at Dorrigo, along with South West Victorian self-proclaimed outsider Ben Bennett, were elected to the Australian Dairy Farmer Board last week.
Both men say they want to bring greater transparency to ADF, which has been widely criticised in recent years for initially opposing the introduction of a mandatory dairy code, undermining attempts to establish a benchmarked milk price index and then supporting an Australian Dairy Plan that has hit a dead end.
“It’s a generational change,” Mr Bennett said.
“We’ve made it very clear this (being elected) is about making sure grassroots farmers’ voices are heard.”
Mr Bennett was widely regarded as an outside chance for a seat on the board, but quietly worked away in the back- ground during recent months to recruit new ADF members and the votes he needed to get across the line.
Mr Cook said the biggest issue the industry faced was re-building unity and proving the value of ADF. “There’s a lack of farmer engagement, with 90 per cent seeing us as irrelevant,” he said
Mr Cook’s strength of conviction even led him to resign from the Dairy Levy Poll Advisory Committee, after a majority of its members refused to give farmers the right to vote for a reduction in the $32 million, they pay their national research, development and marketing body each year — Dairy Australia.
Mr Bennett has also argued “farmers should be given choice”, while personally supporting an increase in the DA levy.
Both men have extensive commercial backgrounds.
While Mr Bennett is widely known for his colourful sense of humour in his role as United Dairyfarmers of Victoria Corangamite chairman, he points out that both he and Mr Cook bring plenty of commercial nous to their new ADF roles.
Mr Bennett has graduate and post graduate qualifications from New Zealand’s Massey University, developed meat industry training pro- grams and worked in technical, consultancy and managerial roles in New Zealand, Australian and even an Indian (buffalo) meat works.
Mr Cook brings almost 20 years’ experience as a technician, engineer and mine manager responsible for up to 250 employees and budgets of up to $250m in the Australian gold processing sector to the ADF role, before turning to dairying in 2007.
The ADF’s new chairman Rick Gladigau, who has been on the board since 2019, said: “If you think you’re going to change the world by getting on to the board, (then) you haven’t been on a board before.”
Mr Gladigau is a fifth-generation dairy farmer in the Adelaide Hills, milking about 90 cows. He left school 40 years ago to come back to his parent’s property, before buying his own place in 1993.
As for the future, Mr Gladigau said climate change, labour shortages and how to more effectively manage bobby calves were key issues the ADF needed to pursue.
A controversial resolution by some ADF board members to block NSW rivals from registering to vote at future annual general meetings was lost. The resolution would have amended ADF’s constitution to demand in the future farmers could only register to vote if they joined the recognised state body in which they operated, excluding rivals’ groups from joining the national lobby group.