FIONA Simson plans to oversee a tighter policy agenda for national farm advocacy that will target core business activity and outcomes that boost the farm sector’s profitability, instead of taking a scattergun approach.
Speaking to Fairfax Agricultural Media about her plans for the National Farmers’ Federation (NFF), the new and first-ever female president said she plans to command a traditional return to “bread and butter issues”.
But she also wants the NFF to continue on a pathway of modernising its representative structure while maintaining a national, farmer unification agenda.
“Like with any organisation’s history, it evolves over time and I think there have been periods in the NFF’s history where it has tried to focus on too many issues,” she said.
“Our core issues are national issues and those are the sort of issues we’ll be looking at.
“We’re looking at tightening up our some of committee structures and refocussing and realigning some of our committee structures, so we can have, like the NFF of old, of 37 years ago, some proactive policy discussions about how we can actually grow.
“Bread and butter issues around trade, around infrastructure, around regional sustainability and workplace relations are the sort of issues you’ll see us focussing on in the early days and water policy.”
Ms Simson said the recent backpacker tax issue was a prime example of where the NFF had focussed on a “nitty gritty, tiny weeny piece of policy” that was incredibly complicated and “sort of down in the weeds of policy discussion”.
But she wants to lift the Federation’s sights to examine a broader, national policy landscape and adopt a more strategic cross-government approach to finding solutions.
Ms Simson said cutting freight costs through improved national infrastructure, rather than members focussing on an individual road or a rail line, would by typical of the NFF’s approach, to benefit farmers, under her leadership.
She said freight was one of the biggest costs any farmer endured, and getting their produce from paddock to port efficiently remained a big picture infrastructure challenge.
“In a world that should be digitally connected - another huge national issue that’s rightfully ours - farmers should be able to connect with consumers directly, digitally,” she said.
Ms Simson said the regional super hub in Toowoomba, Queensland was a great example of a public and private investment that’s leading the way to resolve infrastructure challenges.
“What sort of policy settings do we need in place to make that happen across Australia and target funding strategically to make that happen?” she said.
“That sort of thinking is a national discussion.”
Ms Simson said the core difference between her leadership style and that of Queensland cattle farmer Brent Finlay, who stepped down after three years as NFF President last month, would be inclusiveness in tackling national advocacy.
“Brent was very focussed on the NFF family which is very important but I’m also very focussed on people outside that family and how much difference they will make to our model and that’s what I think you’ll see me doing a lot more of,” she said.
“We need to do much more of that to try and expand our voice and have bipartisan support for policy outcomes in parliament.
“We need a wider group of people singing from the same hymn sheet.”
Ms Simson expressed pride at becoming the NFF’s first female President but stressed women had always played an incredibly important role in Australian agriculture and were an integral part of most farm businesses.
She said they did “everything” from being out in the paddock on headers, looking after the children and the family home, while driving many of the business outcomes.
Women also bring an enormous range of skills and education and experience to farm businesses, she said.
“I’m very proud to be representing them and I take that responsibility quite seriously,” she said.
But Ms Simson thought long and hard about whether she was the right person for the NFF President’s job or had the right skills - but in the end decided her communication prowess would help to address current challenges for farmers.
“The NFF certainly has its challenges at the moment but it also has its opportunities and agriculture is in a time of unequalled opportunities,” she said.
“We’re going to have to expand the conversation and not just talk to our members and other agricultural people but also to those outside the room.
“Agriculture is very good at talking to each other but not so good at talking more widely and we need to, to influence decision-makers; and that’s a huge wide range of political parties and interests and groups.
“We need to talk to the community more and influence consumers and of course work alongside the agricultural supply chain.
“I’m a communicator and that’s one of my real strengths and I’m comfortable that even though (being NFF president) is a little bit daunting, it’s also a big challenge and an exciting challenge.
“I’m excited about addressing those challenges.”
Ms Simson said one of the NFF’s core future goals was achieving national unity and making sure “we can bring everyone back together under the one voice”.
She said 37 years ago when the NFF was first formed it was “all about” creating a stronger voice for farmers.
Several strong organisations and some people well-connected politically came together and said ‘agriculture would be better off, fighting their battles singularly’, she said.
“They all got together and formed the NFF as an apolitical group to fight these battles for agriculture and that model has worked very well,” she said.
“Obviously we don’t represent every farmer in Australia but we need to unify our own members and bring others along for the ride and ensure we’re always credible and strong and can resource some of the battles we have.
“Resourcing unity is one of the NFF’s challenges and agriculture’s challenge is about rising to the opportunities it has in front of it now.”
Ms Simson said the NFF wasn’t going broke but “finances are definitely tight” after it invested heavily, “as we told our members we would, many months ago now”, in the digital space and digital innovation.
“We invested in a digital platform and SproutX,” she said, of the NFF annual report showing more than $1 million was spent developing its new website, as part of its unification strategy.
“Finances are definitely tight but we put forward a number of options, when we did invest, about how we would fund these things.
“We’ve now gone on and done what we said we would do, which was take out a business loan to cover the immediate expense, which was included in this year’s financials.
“We’re not going broke and ‘yes’ finances are tight and ‘yes’ we absolutely keep a very close eye on our spending and our income and we’re working on both those things at the moment.
“Some would say we came to the digital space way too late so it’s important we do take these steps and lead into the digital age which is part of what our investments were about.
“One of the troubles that agricultural advocacy groups have worldwide is funding their advocacy activities because advocacy is something that people expect you to do but it’s very hard to sell.
“If you look at some of the strong groups around the world, they have alternative income streams.
“It’s no secret the NFF has been seeking alternative income streams for a while and the digital space was one area where we thought we could play.
“As we get deeper into it and our thoughts crystallise and evolve, we are still seeking alternative income streams and actively seeking partners on projects who want to support digital innovation in agriculture and want grass-roots access to farmers.”
Ms Simson said NFF CEO Tony Mahar was “doing a great job” and was also “highly respected in the agricultural environment” and anticipated he would continue in that role, under her leadership.
“We’re really looking forward to working together,” she said while stressing the NFF currently had a great policy team in Canberra and nearly had a full contingent of staff.
Mr Finlay was elected NFF president in 2013 replacing Duncan Fraser who became interim president after Jock Laurie’s resignation in April that year to contest pre-selection for the NSW Nationals.
Mr Laurie – also a NSW farmer - served from 2010 to and replaced David Crombie - a grains and beef farmer from Queensland who was NFF president from 2006 to 2010.
Rice Growers Association president Les Gordon – who has been an NFF board director since 2013 – was elected NFF vice-president.
In a move that shocked some NFF insiders and other industry analysts, Grain Growers Limited president John Eastburn was appointed to be a new NFF director.
He will join NSW Farmers Executive Councillor and cattle producer Tony Hegarty as a new director, joining re-elected members; current VFF President and mixed cropping and prime lamb producer David Jockinke, Queensland cattle producer and AgForce President Grant Maudsley and sheep and cattle producer and Vice President of NSW Farmers Mark Horan.