THE livestock industry has expressed outrage over the failure of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to deal with transparency at cattle sale yards, according to the Victorian Farmers Federation (VFF).
The VFF Livestock Group was at the forefront of mandatory pre-sale weighing of cattle at saleyards, in a bid to stamp out anti-competitive industry practices.
“It’s an issue that needs to be dealt with and the industry is running low on patience,” VFF Livestock group president Leonard Vallance said.
“We demanded for industry practices to be investigated along the supply chain, and we got a Senate inquiry into the red meat sector, as well as a review from the ACCC.
“But producers have been badly let down by the review, because there was no recommendation on pre-sale weighing.”
Nine processors failed to show at the first sale at Barnawartha Saleyards in February 2015.
That followed a dispute over pre-weighing.
“It’s impossible to set a market price for cattle when saleyards don’t use consistent weighing methods,” Mr Vallance said.
“I don’t know any other industry where you can buy a product without either needing to know the volume or weight of that product.”