Some 200 people met at Kingscliff, NSW, on 29 and 30 August 2016 to discuss the new Australian Government program on agricultural cooperatives relaunched in the White Paper on Agriculture in July, 2015.
The allocated budget is $14.3M, to be spent, or presumably at least committed, by 30 June 2018. The aim is to assist 2000 farmers during this period. Assistance will be given to engage people with the right expertise to plan cooperatives, to do feasibility studies etc. The project is being delivered by Southern Cross University, at Lismore.
The aim is to assist groups of farmers develop new kinds of cooperatives or other ways of working together. Outcomes of the program are farmers doing things that make them more productive, more profitable, achieve higher prices or other ways to improve their business operations.
Co-ops can be any size. Jack Wilkinson from the Canadian group Cooperatives and Mutuals Canada addressed last month’s gathering. This is the peak body for over 9,000 co-operatives, credit unions, and mutuals in Canada, including 1200 farm cooperatives. Some are big operations, with a turnover in billions of dollars. Some have invested in Australia. Setting up an applied R&D group such as the Birchip Cropping Group (www.bcg.org.au) is also possible. This farmer-owned group has been in operation since 1992, and now has 19 staff, and so must provide a valuable service to the grain farmers of North West Victoria.
Cooperatives, equity partnerships, marketing companies and other ways of working together are an opportunity for small farmers to negotiate with large buying groups. Cooperatives are an avenue for small farmers to work together to develop products, given the general move away from commodities to products targeted at market niches. Working together is also a way to share resources and bring in specialist expertise in for example all the new applications of computers and electronics.
Many of us enjoy Jarlsberg cheese, produced by Norway’s dairy cooperative Tine. This cooperative has 15,000 farmers, 5600 employees and a turnover of some $3B. It is the largest of 12 Norwegian farm cooperatives, in a country with 5 million people.
What opportunities may there be for Qld farmers?
- Vegetable growers getting together to cut costs, liaise better with supermarkets and food manufacturers, get into renewable energy, process surplus products into natural flavours and colours and invest in fermentation of waste product into methane for energy.
- Sugar growers forming cooperatives to negotiate better with mills, jointly investing with the mills into biomanufacturing and perhaps forming an international consulting company to sell expertise in cane growing and even invest in cane growing overseas.
- Cattle producers working together with abattoirs to produce the cattle for niche markets, jointly invest in biochemicals extraction from beef offal
- Grain growers working together to target speciality grain markets in Asia, and even perhaps with CBH, investing in flour mills and other grain processing overseas.
- Forming a farmer owned agricultural bank. Too hard? Have a look at Credit Agricole in France and Rabobank in the Netherlands, farmer owned banks!
How does the old line go, united we stand divided we fall?
- John Hine, Agribusiness and Economic Development, Brisbane
