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DE-MERGER AGFORCE AND AGFORWARD?

Posted by Greg Blackmore on September 12, 2009 at 11:41am in Property Rights Australia

Agmates Just Grounds rural community members have raised concerns that the autonomy of Agforce, and therefore the representation of it’s members, has been compromised by the fact that it accepts funding from governments and is hesitant to “bite the hand that feeds it”

When Agforce started to look for funding to undertake advisory work such as property mapping, to replace the services being abdicated by the State Government’s QDPI, they set up Agforward to undertake these commercial activities.

Therefore to take the Agforce representation away from the government "hand that feeds it" may be as simple as de-mergergering Agforward from Agforce and leaving it to stand alone as a separate private company with directors and no members, only stakeholders/shareholders.

Agforce would then again become and remain an autonomous membership only body with no links at all to Agforward and operate on membership subscription alone to keeps this autonomy.

Obviously the “cloth would have to be cut” to suit the budget.

To make this work there would have to be some important “house rules” such as:-

Directors of Agforward could NOT be be representative directors on Agforce commodity boards or state councillors at the same time.

Agforce councillors/directors could not become Directors of Agforward for say 3 to 5 years after serving on Agforce.

Conversely Agforward Directors could not serve on Agforce boards and council for 3 to 5 years after being a Director of Agforward.

In addition stakeholders/shareholders of Agforward may not hold elected positions in Agforce at any time. The converse may not be required.

Eventually these two organisations would then grow apart, each providing their own set of services.

Tags: Agforce, Agforward, advisory, autonomy, compromised, de-merger, representation, services

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Dale Stiller on December 28, 2011 at 12:40pm

Replies to this discussion when originally published 12th September 2009

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Steve Truman on September 12, 2009 at 2:35pm

G'day Greg,

This is a terrific suggestion and it is essential if AGForce is to ever become the true represtentives of QLD farmers again.

As long as they take and rely on a single dollar of funding from the Government they are compromised. To become a truly effective farmers lobbying organization First they must become independent.

Until then they are nothing more than mere pawns in the game that the government plays with agriculture and farmers lives in Queensland.

What chance though getting the AgForce exec noses out of the government funding troughs. Slim to none and slim has left town.

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Permalink Reply by Greg Blackmore on September 12, 2009 at 2:47pm

The members do have the constitutional power - although it may not seem apparent - and many may not know it.

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Permalink Reply by Greg Blackmore on September 14, 2009 at 4:58pm

Most of the discussion on this topic seems to be coming up on the "Free Canaries Discussion" - another option, to reduce the conflict of interest in Agforce, may be to just sell off Agforward as a business asset with income, and invest the money for the benefit of members, along with the other assets, mainly buildings, that came over from the Cattlemens Union, Graingrowers and, eventually, the United Graziers Association. Some of the funds from the sale of some of these building has possibly gone into purchasing and retaining the old QDPI research stations at Gayndah and Rockhampton.

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Permalink Reply by Greg Blackmore on September 14, 2009 at 7:24pm

You are probably right Cate, given the feeling and comment has intensified as a result of the impending Regrowth Laws. The only possibility that it might have been able to occur was because AgForce and AgForward are already two seperate entities, albiet connected by similar people holding the directors seats. The greatest hurdle to something like this happening would be political inertia to keep things the same and financial, with the benefits that accrue to AgForce from AgForward's cash flow in leiu of membership. I'll not comment much more as it was really a suggestion for debate and I will be away "On the Wallaby" from the 25th for about 5 weeks and away from computer technology. By the time I get back you may have it all fixed!?

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Permalink Reply by Greg Blackmore on September 14, 2009 at 7:27pm

Agmate member, Jennifer Bird has just sent me this article on the VFF, with similar problems regarding listening to their "grass roots". Coincidently the "By LIne" for the article is "On The Wallaby"

Attachments:

VFF.pdf, 146 KB

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Permalink Reply by Lee McNicholl on September 14, 2009 at 10:19pm

G'day Greg, do you know or know how to find out how much funding Agforce or Agfoward unwisely accepts from Premier Blight. In my view if either of those organizations wished to redeem themselves in the eyes of a majority of Queensland's primary producers they would immediately wean themselves off all Government funding t*** and solely rely on membership and commercial activities. The old saying that whoever pays the piper calls the tune has never been truer than in relation to Agforce/Agfoward's capitulation to Premier Blight's attack on landholder's rights to control regrowth

Lee Mc Nicholl PRA Vice Chairman

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Permalink Reply by Greg Blackmore on September 15, 2009 at 6:55am

Thanks for your comments Lee. I will follow up on your query re amount of Govt funding but not sure how much I can find out. Cheers Greg

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Permalink Reply by Rowell Walton on October 14, 2009 at 7:46am

I heard this am on abc that there are very few students wanting to enroll and do ag science,,,some hand ringing about same.

They must be thick, set us up in an industry with a policy which enshrines long term deterioration of returns, remove all atemps to remediate this and then watch us all go broke and then expect us to tell our kids how good it is.....and have them trained to go on.....am I missing something?

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Permalink Reply by Ernest Green on October 18, 2009 at 3:07pm

Cate
I have had email notification from AgForce, as any AgForce member would have had, that the President of AgForce will be in Roma on Tuesday for a members' regional meeting, so any AgForce members who wish to put their views across to the man himself should roll up to that meeting if they are in Roma.
I don't have leasehold land, so can't comment on Delbessie from a personal knowledge point of view, but I reckon if I did have a lease up for renewal and I wanted to renew it, I'd be exploring all ways to do so, whether I agreed with the government's legislation or not.
It is unfair and unjust that the current state government can just change the rules, but, in my view, until we get some credible parliamentary opposition in Qld, I'm afraid all lobby groups have to deal with the government we've got.
After all, at the moment, apart from AgForce, PRA and ABA etc, the other peak lobby groups such as dairy farmers, canegrowers and horticulture groups are the defacto opposition, in the absence of any real effort by our elected representatives in the parliament . What a sad state of affairs for all rural voters in Qld.

Permalink Reply by Joanne Rea on December 31, 2011 at 5:46pm

This is a legitimate discussion.

Some of the amounts paid to Ag Foward are enshrined in legislation or similar.

Unfortunately for this discussion they refer to funding for 'industry organisations". If the funding were given to a commercial offshoot that was not directly conected to Agforce it would be a subsidy. I think there are all sorts of booby traps in this outcome.

My personal view is that the government should do its own dirty work. They are shedding former DPI staff at a great rate of knots.

Permalink Reply by Joanne Rea on January 7, 2012 at 12:55pm

The government funded CSG LNF spin document that I have written about elsewhere tells us that Agfoward received $4.9m for its CSG Landholder Support Initiative.

This is from the Delbessie Agreement document on the government website. There is considerable government money offered here as well.

7.3 Industry advisory service
The Queensland Government will assist with the
establishment of an advisory service provided
by AgForce Queensland to assist leaseholders in
complying with land management agreements
and, where necessary, remedial action notices and
orders. The service, which will be available to any
leaseholder on a voluntary basis, will:
• promote best management practice to improve
natural resource condition
• provide leadership to rural leaseholders in areas
where, or at times when, high-risk degradation
events are likely
• provide an industry perspective
• assist in identifying potential sources of
fi nancial assistance, managerial support, or
suitable training opportunities to resolve
extreme cases
• act (upon invitation) as an intermediary
between leaseholders and NRW in the event of
remedial action being required by the minister.