Wheat marketing structure no 2

[malleefarmer]

The Proposed Wheat Marketing Model contained the following key points :-

• The Wheat Marketing Act be amended to remove A W B’s export monopoly powers

• A Regulatory Body be established, with authority to register bulk wheat exporters from Australia

• The Regulatory Body establish criteria (financial capacity / international commodity trading experience / reputation and credibility) that exporters must meet, in order to qualify as a registered bulk wheat exporter

• The Regulatory body to regularly review registered bulk wheat exporters in order to ensure compliance with their status as a registered bulk wheat exporter

• The regulatory Body to maintain and to report on Australian wheat shipments, and related industry statistics

• Registered bulk wheat exporters to have no restrictions on tonnage, or destination, of Australian wheat exports

• The complete deregulation forthwith of the wheat export trade in containers

• The changes to be in place by July 1 2006, for the commencement of the 2006/07 season

eventually some sort of model will be thrashed out and approved by a majority of farmers here, everybody wants change but when it comes to the last hurdle everyone goes to water and cant decide,sometimes its better if the govt take it out of growers hands as you have got in canada here in aust its almost ultimately up to growers

[charliep]

Thanks for the posting.

How will Australian farmers decide this?

[Vader]

I see this:


-- Australia farmers say wheat monopoly key advantage --
SYDNEY, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Australia's largest farmer group called on the government on Tuesday to keep a requirement that wheat exports go through one firm, after monopoly trader AWB Ltd. <AWB.AX> was caught up in the Iraq oil-for-food scandal.
Removing the wheat monopoly, long derided by rival wheat producer the United States as unfair, would rob Australian farmers of a competitive advantage, the New South Wales Farmers Association said.
Some Australian farmers have called for the "single-desk" monopoly rights to be moved from AWB to another group, after the United Nations accused the firm of making illicit payments to Iraq's former government.
"The single-desk system has been largely responsible for Australia's reputation as a supplier of the highest quality wheat on the world market," grains committee chair Angus McLaren said in a statement.
"If the current system was removed altogether grain growers would be left at the mercy of numerous exporters that are responsible only to their own shareholders/investors," he added.
Prime Minister John Howard has said AWB's monopoly could be reviewed but McLaren did not comment on whether or not the monopoly rights should be retained by AWB, the privatised former Australian Wheat Board, which is still mostly owned by farmers.
The Grains Council of Australia, which represents the country's 35,000 wheat growers, has said most farmers support monopoly exports, although some favoured competitive tenders for services such as financing, ship chartering and international sales.
AWB faces an Australian government inquiry into sales it made under the now-defunct U.N. oil-for-food programme, under which Saddam Hussein's government is accused of skimming $1.8 billion from Iraqi oil sales worth $64 billion that was supposed to be used to buy food and humanitarian supplies.
The U.N. has accused AWB of paying up to $222 million to Saddam Hussein's government under the guise of oil-for-food payments.
The AWB has told the inquiry it inflated wheat prices to cover extra payments owed by Iraq to others, but said the Iraqi buying agency had told it the payments were UN approved.
Australia's main rival in the Iraqi wheat market, the United States, is a longstanding opponent of export monopolies like Australia's wheat sales system, which it says give an unfair trade advantage.
The inquiry, in its third week in an expected five weeks of public hearings, has obtained documents from AWB that were not provided to the UN inquiry. It is due to rule by March 31 on whether AWB has broken any Australian laws.
((Reporting by Michael Byrnes, editing by Rodney Joyce; michael.byrnes@reuters.com; Reuters Messaging:
michael.byrnes.reuters.com@reuters.net; 61-2-9373 1825))

(C) Reuters 2006. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.

[malleefarmer]

Here in South Aust we are the only state in aust to still have a single desk for barley and it is a hot topic.
We are going to have a ballot about it late feb and if growers vote more than 50% for change our peak farm body here in SA will go to govt to legislate for change.
A similar thing could happen with wheat single desk except it federal act of parliment not state so all farmers aust wide would vote or and this is what i think will happen is that the govt will get emroiled in this controversy even more and find AWB have abused there single desk power and privelages and it will simply get taken away from them and the above model will take shape. The treasurer of the country and minister for ag have both floated the idea but most other politicians say its up to farmers.
But if AWB are stripped of the single desk via this enquiry recommedations i cant see the govt giving it to somebody else they will just deregulate it so much easier.

Maybe you guys need a similar scandal to bring change to your marketing system.
Is your marketing system and those who run it sqeaky clean?

[charliep]

Just a follow question on how Australian farm votes are weighted. My understanding that both one farmer/one vote and weighting by farm size impacts how much a farm voice counts. I don't know if this is right but 50 % weighting to one farmer one vote and 50 % based on farm size. Would this apply to a referendum? If it is a barley vote, do voters have a requirement to have grown barley within a certain number of years? Do other market participants (eg. livestock feed grain users) get a say?

[wmoebis]

would that regulartory body looklike our CGC? If so would we need CGC in every elevator for USA and Mexico direct hit shipments?

[malleefarmer]

1 vote one farmer but you must have delivered more than i think its 33 tonne of barley through the abb storage and handling system or elevators if you like.
When i get the ballot paper i will post the questions and the results.

A survey in our rural weekly showed last week 51% of growers we against the single desk monopoly for wheat