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46 Business View Australia - July 2015
WAFarmers focuses on the grains,
meat, wool, dairy and bee industries. It
represents farmers engaged in these
activities at a state and national level
and ensures that government policies
affecting these commodities are
aligned with their members interests.
The federation also plays an active
role in information dissemination to
the media and to the public to convey
the agricultural industry’s viewpoint.
Dale Park, President of WAFarmers,
describes this aspect of its functioning,
“We work very closely with our
members. What happens is that we do
pre-emptive things. We deal with the
issues that our farmershave. A lot of our
policycomesdirectly fromourmembers
who meet in various forums three to
five times a year. We also have priority
councils such as those for livestock
and grains. We respond directly to
members’ worries and concerns.”
Transportation of grain
A large portion of the grains produced
in WA is exported to international
markets.Toensurethecompetitiveness
of this grain it is essential to have
adequate
domestic
transport,
storage and handling facilities.
The presence of well-organised
and coordinated rail infrastructure
is of the utmost importance for
the transportation of grain in WA.
The WAFarmers Grains Council
under the aegis of WAFarmers has
been taking up this issue with the
government and Co-operative Bulk
Handling (CBH) for some time. The
Grains Council has pressed for
continued investment in road and rail
systems to facilitate the transportation
of grain to the overseas buyers.
Dale Park explains the issue in
more detail, “One of the on-going
problems that we have is that the
grain industry needs to get the grain
to port and our road infrastructure
really isn’t built for the tonnage and
the size of the transport vehicles we
have on the road these days. We have
relied very much on rail until now, but
the government has privatised the
railways and they are acting like a
monopoly at the moment, so we are
constantly fighting a multinational
company to try and get the cost down.
We are also communicating with
the government to try and make
them understand that Australia is
a high cost producer of agriculture
so we need to keep the costs
down for growers. The government
should be trying to make Australian
exports
more
internationally
competitive instead of finding ways
to make our business costs go up.”
ASSOCIATIONS