Charters Towers-based beef producer Emma Robinson's passion for the cattle industry has driven her to promote cooperative business models for family-owned beef farms, so that individual operations can gain greater scale, efficiency and profit from the beef supply chain by working together.
Mrs Robinson was the recipient of the 2016 RIRDC Rural Queensland Women's Award for her work as founder of The Beef Co-op Project.
To get the requisite plans in place to launch the venture she completed a Winston Churchill Trust fellowship, which involved researching beef supply innovation in the UK, USA and Canada last year.
“In the US most farmers would belong to two or three farm cooperatives. They both source their farm inputs and sell cooperatively to gain greater market leverage,” Mrs Robinson said.
“Scale gives them the leverage necessary to be part of the supply chain rather than simply selling into it,” she said.
She said consumers want to know the food story and their tastes and wants are evolving constantly.
“Shorter supply chains and greater supply chain transparency are needed to achieve this so processors are increasingly wanting to work directly with producer supply groups to expand on this opportunity.
“In some cases producer cooperatives are working directly with the end customer to understand their needs and bring these ideas back to work on with the processor.”
Mrs Robinson said in the UK and US there is significant industry support for starting and developing producer cooperatives to enable producers to have greater opportunity in the supply chain.
“There isn’t the same level of support in Australia but it may be changing with the Australian Government through its AG White Paper announcing $13.8m to provide knowledge and materials on cooperatives, collective bargaining and innovative business models.”
She said the to make the co-op work trust, communication and loyalty are key.
“It has to be about adding value across the supply chain. It’s a different way of operating that isn’t going to be for everybody but for family farming to have a future we need to do more than simply ride the supply -demand cycle.
Mrs Robinson said consistency of supply and product is the other big challenge, particularly in a grass fed scenario.
“But cooperatives can enable producers to better align production systems and get a better handle on the practices and technologies that really work.”
She said in the short term processors are chasing supply so it’s a great time to talk about opportunities for collaboration.
“We need a critical mass of producers willing to champion the idea.
“In the longer term good management is essential underpinned by a data platform that enables timely production and marketing decision.
Mrs Robinson said while it’s still early days, there is certainly interest in the project.
“We are looking to hold producer forums later in the year to promote the concept further, which will involve bringing in key industry experts to discuss where to go from here.
“There isn’t just one cooperative model or opportunity but the message is that there is great benefit in family farmers collaborating to build greater scale and efficiency.”