In the wake of the H7 “local” Avian Influenza outbreaks in Vic, NSW and ACT, there has been a rush of bureaucratic survey-taking, and requests for input and opinion, all hoping that meat poultry growers tell government departments how wonderfully they handled the outbreak. Sadly, they are receiving the truth: the good, the bad and the ugly. at $10-12 MILLION per farm and farms out of production for nearly 6 months, nobody can be really happy about the outcome. One positive thing has been the appointment of an Efficiency Analyst, who has been valuable in identifying where things went wrong.
Amongst this has been a review of the Biosecurity Agreement – that funding arrangement that splits the cost of outbreaks according to the disease, the industry and the potential for the disease to infect humans.
Did you know that the industry (via a biosecurity levy on chicks) is still paying for it’s share of the Newcastle Disease outbreak in 2000?
The industry “share” of Avian Influenza is less – because AI has the potential to be a human disease. Still, this industry will be paying for part of the “local” outbreak, and any H5N1 “nasty” strain in the future.
You might recall the “old” National Competition Policy and Principles. That’s the highy theoretical, economist-driven, philosophical document that resulted in removal of the Meat Poultry growers’ Countervailing power legislation in all states, resulting in grower not even having a full ability to use delegates to negotiate thier comtacts for them. Even the ACCC law changes in 2023 (changes to the Australian Consumer Law) did not provide growers with any significant countervailing power, although Class Exemptions that allow growers to compare contracts and prices have been a bit useful.
Well, The government’s at it again. Now they want to overhaul the National Competition Policy and Principles – so they went out to consultation for a selected few. ACGC was notified of this review 1 working day before close of submissions – so it was “all hands to the wheel”. The overarching theme is that competition policy ONLY works when there is strong regulatory backup (like a mandatory Code, for example) – otherwise competition descends into thuggery and coercion. We suggest every member review the ACGC response – you’d bet the processors are!
The old National Water Plan, published in the early 2000’s, brought us (eventually)
the highly contested Murray Darling Basin Plan
State goverments getting involved in your dam storages
a trading scheme for water that works poorly during drought….. and so on.
NOW the government wants to impose a NEW National Water Plan. It appears that they were very secretive about it – even though meat poultry are BIG (if very efficient) users of water, there was no consultation at all and the only way we found out was becuase the SA DPI (“PIRSA”) was so horrified by what they saw that they contacted all the Agricultural peak bodies who’s industries operate in South Australia adn brought it to all our attention.
The proposed new Plan:
does NOT consider water use for food production,
does not consider any water use at all for livestock
gives Indigenous “cultural” water needs/use exactly the same weighting in water allocation as drinking water for “townies”,
does NOT consider desalination as an option for water, even in urban areas,
proposes that things can be changed later by “schedules” that are not present in the plan (sound like a meat poultry contract?)
quotes “indigenous needs” from a report that states on page 3 that the views of the writers do not represent Indigenous peoples……and so on.
ACGC was caught on short notice and was not able to circulate this to all members, but did ask Directors (and their organisations), Associate Members and policy Councillors for comment – and we were surprised how much interest and comment there was! This thing has a way to play out, and now ACGC has clearly identified that it is a stakeholder we should be included in further consultations.
The framework is now moving to the operational phase. Processors are ALL required to report under COPP III emissions reporting from 2025, and nearly all of the farms as well. There is already posturing around the collection of data, and not all of that which is being transmitted to growers is accurate. In particular, there is NO agreed platform for industry reporting yet. It makes sense for the industry to agree on a common platform, but some processors are “going their own way”, apparently inclduing to collect a lot of actual data from their growers. The concern with this is that it may affect growing fee reviews in the future. Take a look a tthe frequently asked questions from the Australian Chicken Meat Federation below:
In a first for poultry industries worldwide, the meat poultry industry in Australia has developed a Sustainability Plan, along similar lines to that produced by the Australian red meat industries.
It identifies how the industry will move to sustainability in four key areas:
The Birds – including animal husbandry, animal welfare, antimicrobial stewardship and biosecurity
The Planet – including climate resilience, carbon accounting, feedstock, sustainable packaging, waste and water management
The People – including diversity, workforce attraction, training, and job creation
Economic Performance and Food Security. – including food safety, production and consumption, financial value and research and development
It’s fair to say that the processors are taking on some pretty big change in the move to sustainability. It’s also fair to say that the first drafts put significant impost and cost onto growers and ACGC negotiated hard to ensure that growers’ inputs were both meaningful and less costly. The real change for growers out of this plan will be that every farm in Australia will have to develop thier own written biosecurity plan.
It identifies how the industry will move to sustainability in four key areas:
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