Time for wheat to cut against the grain

Wheat exporting needs reform.  Restricting exports to the discredited AWB is outmoded and against the national interest.

The wheat regulator could develop transparent and sound principles for export which ensure wheat growers are paid and then licence exporters to all who meet the stringent criteria.

Only this action accords with the principle of a free market economy.  Only deregulation will give wheat growers the same choice of who to sell their product to as every other farmer, manufacturer, shopkeeper and business has.

The Australian wheat industry suffers from a lack of innovation, poor infrastructure investment, and no incentives to develop farm-based economies of scale.

Recent research on what wheat varieties are required by wheat buyers, compared to what Australia grows, shows a failure to adapt to the changing needs of major customers.  The US and Canada have not missed this opportunity.  This failure to innovate can be laid squarely at the feet of the single desk.

Many economic studies have determined that a single desk is of no benefit to Australian wheat growers or to the Australian community.

Even a recent report commissioned by AWB itself fails to identify any price premiums received by growers from the operation of the single desk.

In the most recent reviews and polls on the single desk, at best only 10 per cent of growers participated.  With 90 per cent either not motivated, warned off or just too busy to participate, there is the real risk of ill-informed, uneconomic producers dictating their views at the expense of the viable growers.

Why is wheat regarded as special but dairy, beef, sheep meat and wool, not to mention horticulture, are all regarded as capable of exporting without a single desk?

The answer lies in the continued efforts of the AWB in seeking to convince growers into falsely thinking AWB's interests are the same as growers.

The Nationals have hitched their wagon to the single desk even though less than 1 per cent of Nationals voters are wheat growers.  Liberals have allowed themselves to be spooked by the Nationals' table-thumping.

The solution to the political mess in the Coalition over wheat export requires leadership, principle and action.

Bad policy needs to be recognised as such and removed.  Political considerations are always hard to overcome but with careful application they can be.

With wheat, why are all the proposed solutions about keeping a single desk?

To smooth the transition to a deregulated wheat market, there are many choices available.

There could be a wheat plan that assists small, unprofitable growers.  Or there could be services offered to wheat growers to help them find more profitable varieties of wheat and better methods of growing it.

If the government really wanted to help wheat growers, it could inject major funds into upgrading rail and receivals infrastructure to reduce the enormous cost it takes to bring the wheat to port.

Australia has benefited from deregulation of the economy across many sectors.  Wheat farmers should be wondering why they are not allowed to benefit from a similar reform.

The answer, as always, is politics.

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