Page 15 - Australian Pork Newspaper
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■ Letters to the Editor ■ Letters to the Editor ■
It is the responsibility of those making submissions to ensure the correctness of their claims and statements. The views expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the publisher.
AUSTRALIAN Pork Limited is a producer- owned organisation, yet I feel producers have very little say in the running of the organi- sation.
With compulsory lev- ies, APL does not have to work at getting mem- bers.
Though standing at about 200 members out of more than 2500 pro- ducers nationwide, A PL needs to do more to en- gage producers.
I feel APL is very se- cretive about a lot of is- sues, and while they do surveys to gauge pro- ducer satisfaction, they don’t publish any results, but tell us that produc- ers are happy with what they are doing.
If they have nothing to hide, they should be more open to being questioned by produc- ers – remember, pro- ducers own this organi- sation.
Our CEO told me the recent round of pro- ducer meetings were “a great success”, and an- other round of meetings is being organised.
I have only heard neg- ative comments about a number of these meet- ings.
I asked our CEO for a report on what she learnt from these meet- ings and the cost in- volved in running them, neither query has been
answered.
I suggest delegates
need to have a great- er input into APL and that they should form a steering committee to receive input from other delegates, prioritise the issues raised and pre- sent these at the Del- egates’ Forum in a more formal way.
If Board salaries were reduced, delegates could receive some support from APL to achieve this.
I believe APL should return to producers the last levy increase be- cause they have not met the commitment they made to justify the in- crease.
Additionally, I suggest that only members re- ceive the costly, glossy publications APL posts out, which they would pay a fee to receive.
Non-members would only receive important industry information on the likes of ASF, bio- security and so on.
Non-members would also get research data because they pay for this.
This data can be pub- lished in Australian Pork Newspaper, which I think is the best and most informative publi- cation I receive.
This would give pro- ducers the option of saving money if they don’t see value in all the
publications APL dis- tributes.
APL needs to improve the distribution of re- search results because I believe most produc- ers see minimal results from the research.
Pig333.com is a web- site I use and it is in- formative and easy to read.
I feel APL could learn from this format if us- ing email.
The APL website is difficult to follow if looking for information.
While APL does not publish these details, I understand the CEO re- ceives a significant sala- ry in excess of $400,000, while Board members each get about $40,000, all plus expenses.
On top of this are the large number of staff employed.
APL is a small organi- sation and I believe too much of our levies is spent on salaries, travel and so on.
APL wants to be on the Anti-Dumping Commission, yet Aus- tralia was dumping pork on overseas mar- kets during the last pig crisis.
With our high cost of production, this is the only way we can get rid of volumes of pork dur- ing times of oversupply.
What do they hope to achieve by being on this commission?
The current drop in pig prices is the result of Asian students and tourists not coming to Australia.
This demonstrates how easy it is for our supply and demand ra- tio to get imbalanced and there is nothing APL can do about it.
If APL were to ask delegates to report on planned expansion by their levy backers, we could have much more up-to-date information on where the industry is heading.
With this information, producers could form their own opinion as to whether they think there may be an over- supply situation ahead.
Producers may choose to put money aside or delay major expenditure to see them through the downturn.
Once sheds are built, they will be filled.
The recent crisis cost the industry hundreds of millions of dollars between what produc- ers and wholesalers lost.
Wholesalers have to recover their losses from the industry as well.
Many good producers were forced out of the industry and good staff laid off.
I think APL has for- gotten about the ex- treme hardship many families suffered dur- ing the last crisis.
A PL had told produc- ers they believed the market could handle an extra 12,000 sows per year at a time when, had they been looking at more up-to-date in- formation (which was obvious to many), they would have known that we were already head- ing for oversupply.
It takes a long time for a producer to exit the industry.
They have to feed stock until they are marketable, all the time losing money.
The only alternative is to destroy stock.
In summary, on aver- age producers pay over 10 percent of their net income in APL levies.
I think this is far too high and adds to our cost of production.
We need a producer organisation, however it needs to be cost effec- tive and answerable to producers.
APL has lost a lot of staff in recent years and now has a CEO who I believe has little knowledge of the pig industry, which does not reflect well on the organisation.
I think it is important more producers become involved in the running of APL if they want to see changes made with- in the organisation.
Future price slumps may be more severe and the largest producers who can get contracts with the likes of Wool- worths, Coles, Aldi and Costco will be least af- fected, leaving others to be the ones who strug- gle for survival. Andrew Reilly
If you would like to get in touch and share your thoughts with Andrew, please email andrew.rei lly95@yahoo.com
WHERE is the $13,000,000 belonging to NSW pig producers?
It was collected as lev- ies from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s and stolen by the Greiner government about 1988, and with accu- mulated interest and inflation would eas- ily exceed $50,000,000 now.
Will the NSW gov- ernment spend its own money (and not pig pro- ducers’) as compensa- tion should an African swine fever outbreak occur?
I am astounded cur- rent producer leaders and the Department of Agriculture claims no knowledge of the exist- ence of the fund.
Then, it was over 30 years ago.
I have a list of peo- ple involved at the time who can verify both the existence and confisca- tion of the fund by the Greiner government.
Greiner stole the pork producer fund with the bland statement: “You are not using this money, and if ever it is needed, we will be right behind you!”
He sure was correct
for within two years the rhinitis scare went through the industry having been imported with a boar from Can- ada.
A flurry of activity occurred within the De- partment of Agriculture to ascertain the need of a ‘slaughter out’ policy for rhinitis.
Faced with having to return the money, it was deemed the infec- tion was beyond the reach of a slaughter out, so was a pig in- dustry problem.
The government was certainly behind us – way behind!
What infuriated me at the time was our farm industry leader meekly handed over the money without making a noise!
Next on Greiner’s ‘hit list’ was the cattle com- pensation fund, though since the cattle sector was larger and better run, Greiner contented himself with the pig producers’ fund.
The interest from the fund money was, up until that time, used for research within the pig industry to good effect.
In the past, produc- ers’ money from the compensation fund was spent to build the boar test shed at Tocal Agri- cultural Centre, run by Anne Maybee.
Unfortunately, it was a political decision that caused it to fail.
The bottom line is the money was and is producers’ money, and should be returned to producers or acknow- ledged for use within the industry, not to compensate for the gov- ernment’s mismanage- ment as a unique tax on pig producers.
I ask the question again – as the current NSW government is making all the right noises about support should ASF occur.
Remember Greiner promised support too!
Since I believe the compensation fund was unique to NSW, what extra support can we, NSW producers, expect with the use of our own money?
Neil Unger
If you have any fur- ther information relat- ing to the lost monies, please email ben@ porknews.com.au
HAVE YOUR SAY!
All producers are encouraged
to send in letters to be published in APN, outlining any concerns
or issues they may have with the industry.
This is an open forum where you can cover any topic, whether for or against an issue.
Please send your letters to: ben@porknews.com.au or PO Box 387, Cleveland QLD 4163
www.porknews.com.au
Australian Pork Newspaper, March 2020 – Page 15


































































































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