FROM the lack of new leaders coming through the ranks to the battle to simply stay afloat and financial, livestock producer peak advocacy groups are under pressure.
The challenges facing the key representative councils were put under the spotlight in a frank panel session at the livestock export industry’s national conference, LIVEXforum 2016, in Canberra this afternoon.
Panel facilitator Matt Linnegar, chief executive officer of the Australian Rural Leadership Foundation, led a discussion on what the vision for advocating and influencing should be.
Taking part were Cattle Council of Australia’s Geoff Pearson, Sheepmeat Council of Australia’s Kathleen Giles and Goat Industry Council of Australia’s Fiona Landers.
The panel agreed many issues were shared and there was opportunity for alignment but the first step had to be lifting producer awareness of the what their councils do and why that work is vital.
Mr Linnegar said with so many peak producer groups facing internal survival pressures, the questions had to be asked whether there should be more alignment and whether the demands placed on councils were too great.
Mr Pearson said the single largest challenge facing CCA was survival of the council itself - bringing income in was proving a major stumbling block.
Ms Giles named succession planning as the sheepmeat council’s biggest challenge.
“Advocacy organisations need new leaders coming in willing to stand up in front of politicians,” she said.
As such, SCA had launched a project to train new people to representative roles, she said.
The panelists said already a lot of collaborative work took place and the reality was there was no role of a peak producer council that could be easily passed off.
“If you take away peak industry groups, you take away the opportunity for producers to have a helicopter view - the ability to see funds as one bucket of money to put towards the benefit of the whole industry,” Ms Giles said.
“The key thing is a small number of people are doing an enormous amount of work for an entire industry - which brings us once again to the need for succession planning.”
There was no question councils needed to “be seen more”, the panelists said.
There were several reasons put forward as to why so many producers were unaware of the work of their peak representative body.
“Producers are usually direct members of state farming organisations so in their mind, the information is coming from those SFOs,” Ms Giles said.
“A lot is also communicated via the National Farmers Federation.
“We have always seen value in speaking with one voice but it has meant we really at in the middle of the sandwich.”
Councils had also always operated on limited finances.
“But it’s becoming increasingly clear that showing what we are and why we are important is a key issue,” Mrs Giles said.
All insisted their doors were always open and their council would answer any question posed.
Speaking after the session, Mr Pearson acknowledged the proliferation of breakaway representative groups in the beef game was in part a result of that lack of producer awareness of CCA’s role.
The significant ‘air time’ these groups were receiving meant that at times, mixed messages were making their way to policy makers and the general community, he agreed.
Some groups were making enemies where the peak council was trying to build alliances.
“It is frustrating and it is growing,” he said.
CCA’s policy was to “bring them into the fold.”
“We have to make sure the message is not getting portrayed the wrong way, that we are all rowing the boat in the right direction,” Mr Pearson said.