farmer ignorance unfortunate

Grower won't side with single desk
Asa Wahlquist
February 22, 2006
MARK Johns may farm just down the highway from Warracknabeal, but at first he wasn't planning to attend the rally there today in support of AWB's single desk.

"It's a shocking abuse of farmers, really," he said. "If they went along and explained the issues it would be great, but they're just going to try to convince the Prime Minister or the national press."

Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile will address the rally, billed "Send a Signal to Save the Single Desk" in Warracknabeal, a district in western Victoria containing smaller wheat growers whose properties sprang from the soldier settlements established after World War I.

Mr Johns, who decided last night he would go to the rally to observe, said that if Mr Vaile were honest he would have to admit AWB's export monopoly over wheat, or the single desk, could not survive. "But if he goes to meetings like the one at Warracknabeal and waves the flag, he will be able to show he is distant from the Liberal Party and supporting the single desk."

Mr Johns will also attend AWB's annual general meeting in Melbourne tomorrow.

He argues that the single desk is not an effective or efficient way of selling wheat. "There are plenty of questions that should be asked," he said. "It limits our choices. I think we would do better if there were a number of different organisations that could offer to buy from us."

Mr Johns farms with his brother Scott and wife Jen at Dooen, north of Horsham in western Victoria. They grow wheat, barley, lentils, chickpeas and canola.

The Victorian single desk for barley ended in July 2001. Mr Johns said farmers are now getting more money for barley. "We're also getting better prices on the domestic wheat market (which deregulated in 1989). Often that is simply a matter of their being able to find more efficient ways of getting the grain to the end user."

As a result of the Cole inquiry, there was a "fair bit" of ill-feeling towards AWB, he said. "The single desk is all about trust ... and that trust is gone."

If multinational grain traders such as Cargill or Louis Dreyfus had paid $300 million in kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's regime, they would now be out of business, he said.

Mr Johns admits few farmers would be prepared to tell a local meeting they want the single desk removed, but dismisses AWB-commissioned polling showing nearly 80 per cent of farmers support the monopoly.