ONE interested onlooker at the AgForce State Conference in Rockhampton last week was Victorian Farmers' Federation president Andrew Broad (pictured).
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Mr Broad said while the two organisations were very different, there were some things he could take back to Victoria.
"(AgForce) has a pretty vibrant young staff," he told the Queensland Country Life at the conference.
"Their training arm is something I've been impressed with. Certainly our conference is bigger, but over a shorter period.
"We've made it short because we know producers are time poor. I'm not here to tell (AgForce) how to run their conference, I'm just here to learn and see what good ideas and synergies there are.
"I'm on the board of the National Farmers' Federation and I think it's important as a director of the NFF to have an understanding of the issues that Queensland faces."
Mr Broad, 35, said when he took over as president the VFF was tracking towards insolvency.
"When I took on the VFF we would have been insolvent in three years," he said.
"What we've done in 12 months is a complete restructure of the organisation. We had to cut $1 million out of a $6m operating budget so we had to be fairly ruthless; wage freezes, pay cuts, sacking staff, restructure, put up fees - we had to give the place an almighty shake up.
"We're now running our first balanced operating budget in nine years."
Mr Broad said the biggest thing he had done was change the face of the board.
"If you look around my board table now, every one of them is a commercial producer who is still in the growth stage of their business," he said.
Mr Broad said there had been a real shift towards new talent. This is proof in the ages of his executive. His treasurer is 32 and his vice-president and livestock president are both in their 40s.
"When I took on the presidency it allowed people who are younger to maybe think they can step up to the plate and contribute," he said.
"I think if you're going to develop good policy you need to have people that are in the growth stages of their business, not in the retirement years of their business.
"To attract those people to the organisation you have to minimise their time commitment. It's important to the membership that you've got real farmers running the organisation."
Mr Broad also commented on the Australian Breeders' Association step towards trying to have Meat and Livestock Australia abolished.
"That's so naive if the ABA does that," he said.
"MLA is a standout model of promotion when it comes to R&D. You have to have no politics in the promotion of your business and you've only got to look at AWI which has allowed producers to play politics - the industry's gone nowhere.
"I'm very firm on that. Don't let farmers' politics get involved with promotion and R&D."
