AGRICULTURE'S national advocacy group, National Farmers Federation (NFF) signalled change in the way the farmers voice is managed and perhaps funded.
Speaking at Beef 2018, NFF, president, Fiona Simson made it clear, in a world of keyboard warriors and social licence, agricultural advocacy needs to move with the times.
“In 1985, about 45,000 farmers rallied in Canberra,” she said.
“That was the way farmers made their voices heard.
“Today, agricultural advocacy is changing.”
Ms Simson said social media and the internet allowed fringe minority groups to be disproportionately effective.
“We are dealing with a situation where people are able to make their voices heard, and be very loud,” she said.
“They can pretend they are advocating on behalf of a huge percentage of the population just through social media.
“Everybody is an expert, everybody is able to put forward their opinion.”
“So often, unfortunately, they put that opinion in such a way that nobody knows whether it is true or not.”
Ms Simson said the new environment challenged traditional agricultural advocacy groups mode of operation.
Currently none of the levies that you pay go towards farmer advocacy
- Fiona Simson
“The advocacy groups can’t wait until they have a meeting and pass a resolution before they do something,” she said.
“Because it is finished.
“It’s done and you might have lost it by then.”
Ms Simson said current sheep live export issue was point in case.
“You couldn’t get a better example of how immediate advocacy has to be and how sudden the need is to act.
“Advocacy needs to be immediate.”
Ms Simson said to be effective, agriculture needs to advocate with a united voice rather then from individual silos.
“For me the answer to a lot of the issues is to work together” she said.
“We are here at beef week and of course it is about cattle.
“But it’s not just about cattle.
We are dealing with a situation where people are able to make their voices heard, and be very loud
- Fiona Simson
“Today it's a live export issue with sheep, tomorrow it might be cattle, the next day a glyphosate issue with grain.
Ms Simson said NFF had set a goal to grow Australian agriculture’s value to $100 billion by 2030.
Part of strategy discussions to reach this goal, included the NFF model and how advocacy is funded.
“NFF was the model 30 years ago,” she said.
“Now is a great time to have a look and see how we are doing it, how can we be doing better.
“Currently none of the levies that you pay go towards farmer advocacy.
Ms Simson said the research development corporations invested farmers levy money.
“But none of that is allowed to be used for advocacy,” she said.
“All the advocacy money comes from voluntary dollars from farmers.”
“So we have to understand how that works.
“Is there a better way for cross-sector working together.”
Ms Simson said while a role of NFF was to talk to government and get policy outcomes, at the end of the day, it was about farmers.
“Our job is to represent farmers,” she said.
“To represent farmers across Australia, all different walks of life, all different commodity groups.”