DAIRY farmers - and Australian farmers in general - lack engagement at the value end of the food chain.
That’s according to Gary Helou, who heads up Murray Goulburn – Australia’s largest dairy foods company.
Speaking at the Australian Farm Institute Roundtable dinner in Melbourne last night, Mr Helou said dairy farmers were active and engaged with farm-related matters, but not when it came to the supply chain.
“I look at the incredible farmer activism and engagement about all matters that deal with the farm,” he said.
“They (farmers) have a high level of engagement…in terms of economics and political matters, even free trade.
“Yet, when you get across to where the value is, which is the food - their primary product - they are completely bloody disengaged.”
Mr Helou said he attended farmer meetings up four or five times a year, where he was “bombarded” by questions about matters relating to the farm.
“That is fair enough. That is my job. But I beg sometimes for a question about how we (MG) are doing with cheese in Japan…or how is our nutritional plant going in China or what is our share of X, Y and Z in those growth markets?,” he said.
“And I’m brave enough to suggest that the same level of apathy exists in other sectors.
“Farmer ‘passivism’ and disengagement at the value end of the chain is bewildering.”
Mr Helou said the day that farmers became engaged on the market end of the chain - then agriculture sector would be in a healthier state.
“A farmer, or trader, needs to know on what side of the fence they want to sit,” he said.
“If you hand over your product at the farmgate, you are basically at your weakest, you are getting your lowest price - you are handing over all the value to someone else.
“It is only when you have an ownership stake and have an involvement, that you will create that wealth.”
He added that farmers needed to recognise that ex-farmgate they produced an agricultural product.
“People don’t eat wheat, they don’t eat live cows or raw milk,” he said.
“It is food when it gets to market and is bought and consumed.”
Mr Helou said only a fraction of the value was at the farmgate.
“You are in a weak negotiating position. Left alone; a farmer ex-farmgate is in a very weak position.”
