Push for new wheat plan

Western Australia’s peak farming lobby has renewed its support of a single desk marketing system for wheat exports, developing a new single desk model in the lead up to a series of nationwide grower meetings on the future of wheat marketing.

The WA Farmers Federation Grains Council passed a motion supporting the new model, which at its core transfers management of the single desk from a company, namely AWB(I), to a grower-owned cooperative.

The new National Single Desk Company would be backed by legislation empowering it as the nation’s single desk manager with the sole right to export wheat.

ASIC, the Grains Council of Australia and wheat grower shareholders will maintain oversight and regulatory rule of the new entity, which will be a non-profit organisation with the sole aim of maximising net pool returns to growers.

WAFF grains council president Robert Doney said the new model would remove the current conflict of interest in AWB(I) of maximising grower returns alongside maximising shareholder returns, and deliver a more transparent and accountable system.

Mr Doney, along with grains council senior vice-president Derek Clauson, is in Canberra this week to present the model to the GCA in an attempt to gain a unified national position on wheat marketing.

But Western Graingrowers’ policy director Slade Brockman said the WAFF model was unworkable.

“It’s just a back-to-the-future approach. The Australian government is not going to down the path of re-regulation,” he said.

Mr Brockman said the most effective way forward was to introduce an accreditation system for traders and allow them to apply to the Wheat Export Authority for wheat export licences.

“That would clean the market up overnight. You would have good prices for growers, get rid of all the politics out of the industry; it really is the sensible path forward,” he said.