THE big questions producers have been throwing around about the new peak advocacy body Cattle Australia were answered candidly at a major beef industry conference hosted by the Northern Territory Cattlemen's Association last week.
Two of Cattle Australia's inaugural directors, deputy chair Garry Edwards and Queensland producer Adam Coffey, fielded some straight-to-the-point queries in a panel session.
These included: How are you any different to what's come before, why would we join CA if we are members of a state farming organisation, how will you meet the needs of all producers given the diversity in the grassfed cattle game, how will CA be funded and what have you done so far.
Mr Edwards is also the managing director of AAM, provider of investor, asset and operation management services to agriculture, and Mr Coffey, who runs a 2500 hectare beef breeding and trading enterprise in central Queensland with wife Jacynta, is well-known for his social media advocacy of the cattle industry.
They were joined by Jed Matz, a former Cattle Council of Australia boss and now chief executive officer of the Northern Hub, which supports producers to become more drought resilient.
The sun finally set on the long-standing CCA at the end of last year, when CA was formed and took over the job of representing grassfed cattle producers across the nation.
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In a nutshell, CA's plan is to pick some big ticket items, go hard and get some good wins early.
Those at the helm see getting runs on the board as the key to encouraging producer engagement, and its the latter they believe will be critical to the ongoing success of the organisation - and what will make it different to what has come before.
"SFOs are vital in the chain but this whole restructure process came about because grassfed cattle producers felt the way to get their issues raised through SFOs was too convoluted," Mr Coffey said.
"SFOs are multi-commodity representative bodies. They do a lot of things well but they have to cover a lot of issues and you can't beat the strength of a single commodity body."
Mr Edwards said true engagement on a national basis would be crucial.
"Ultimately we will be judged by what we achieve," he said.
"At the end of the day, we have to have a value equation that delivers to people on a national basis."
A lot of that would come down to communication and a producer understanding of what work has been done and what has been achieved, he said.
Mr Matz said that had always been a challenge.
"So much of the work that gets done is difficult to communicate - it's the idea that if you don't turn up for the battles in Canberra you're on the menu," he said.
Mr Edwards said addressing misperceptions about what CA does and what research and development body Meat & Livestock Australia does will be the starting point.
"MLA can not advocate. That would be a breach of their funding charter and we rely heavily as an industry on the government funding MLA receives in matched research and development dollars," he said.
Mr Coffey said lobbying can sometimes be seen as a dirty word but what it means is the ability to retain farmer's rights - whether that's the right to use certain products, certain practices or just to keep trading as in the case of the live sheep ban.
"We need to find a way to engage producers and to quit this general apathy we have for advocating for our industry," he said.
"I've just returned from France and in the EU, producers are so very heavily regulated - that's a place we don't want to end up at."
Diverse needs
On the topic of the enormous diversity in the industry - geographically, in size and across markets - Mr Edwards said if anyone needed a reminder as to why they should understand the business of those further afield and why the industry was 'one', it was the 2011 live-ex ban.
"Within six weeks the price of Angus feeder steers that had nothing to do with the live export trade dropped 60 cents a kilogram. That was the greatest wake-up call that southern producers ever had as to why they needed to place importance on northern issues," he said.
"Similarly, this sheep ban is not a WA problem. Taking any competition out of a market has a massive impact.
"The great thing about the board we have now is it is made up of people who have been democratically elected, not nominated by SFOs, so there already is autonomy to deal with matters and truly have meaningful discussions not hindered by state borders .
"This structure allows us to tackle issues in a way that was not possible before, when people had to, almost by definition, be parochial which was often at odds to the best national outcome."
First job
He said the first act of the board once new chief executive officer Luke Bowen was in the chair next month would be to commission a review of the policy council to lock in the representation model of regional voting.
"We will also appoint a senior executive in regards to policy to integrate what happens from board matters to the regions," he said.
"While that might not be perfect in some people's eyes, it is the most direct representation this industry has had to date."
He described CA's work so far - getting unnecessary court cases resolved in the first few months and securing a high-quality CEO - as significant.
Long haul
Talk about the need to modernise goes back a long way, Mr Matz said.
"CCA in 2007 opened up to direct membership and that was driven by SFOs not being able to pay as much and so CCA had reduced resources and thus less ability to do the job properly," he said.
"That created a vacuum which was being filled by other organisations."
The 2011 Gillard Government live-ex ban was a catalyst for action, he said.
"It's unfortunate something like that had to come along to highlight how badly broken things were," Mr Matz said.
"It showed there was certainly need for reform. It highlighted the lack of ability CCA had to drive issues when it needed to."
He agreed that in the end, it may have been a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
"CCA did have some great wins - developing a premium for grassfed product, reform to the meat industry language, the move to objective carcase measurement, the Rising Champion initiative and rural awareness tours which involved taking government people out of Canberra and showing them the production systems," he said.
"But CA now has a clean slate and that's the opportunity."