The Australian Lot Feeders Association (ALFA) is calling on the Federal Government to compel grain bulk handlers and traders to release the data they hold on volumes of grain stocks. The call comes as independent commodity traders reveal there is no critical grain shortage, suggesting there is at least an extra five million tonnes available to the domestic market.
President of the Association, Malcolm Foster, says the intensive agriculture industries are not dealing with a level playing field. "Markets work best when there is plenty of information available to all players in the market," he says. "If there is something the government could do to get more reliable information on production, grain-in-stock and forward commitments that would be welcomed," says Foster.
ALFA estimates its end-users of grain are paying around $250 a tonne in Western Australia and up to $400 a tonne on the east coast. CEO of the Australian Dairy Farmers' Federation (ADFF), John McQueen, backs up these figures. "Prices that are being charged around the country at this time are around the $330-a-tonne," he says. "There are some places where attempts are made to try and charge a lot more than that," says McQueen. So bereft of information on these grain stocks is the dairy industry, it's pouring its own money into ABARE and the Australian Bureau of Statistics to collate better figures.
Dugald Walker, from Young in NSW, is Australia's second largest pig producer. He says he's fed up with the lack of transparency. "We have a real problem with the secrecy of the [Australian] Wheat Board and we just aren't able to make any plans with any certainty," he says.
The Australian Egg Corporation's managing director James Kellaway is also struggling to understand how one sector of the grains industry can claim information is "commercial-in-confidence" and withhold it, especially in drought times, when it knows other sectors need it and may suffer financially without it. "We lack effective market intelligence," he says. "What are the stocks and what are the movements of those stocks as they relate to harvests and export usage?," says Kellaway.
In this report: Malcolm Foster, president, Australian Lot Feeders' Association (ALFA); John McQueen, CEO, Australian Dairy Farmers' Federation (ADFF); Bill Bray, president, Cattle Council of Australia; James Kellaway, managing director, Australian Egg Corporation Ltd (AECL); Dugald Walker, pig producer, Young, NSW
