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n Letters to the Editor n Letters to the Editor It is the responsibility of those making submissions to ensure the correctness of their claims and statements. The views expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the publisher.
WHY are beef, lamb and goat producers receiving more than twice the price pork producers are for their product?
Our CEO boasted of de- veloping a new market for pork by selling it to zoos, which indicated the low level of achievement our board and executives are satisfied with.
pork to alleviate our over- supply.
of the grind size of grain.
I thought this was common knowledge 20
has more to lose from the introduction of foot and mouth disease.
lifetoAPL–andalotmore producers would become interested in the future of the industry and not only their individual business.
board chair have responded to any of the issues I have raised previously – despite the fact that they receive $500,000 a year from me.
The effectiveness of Aus- tralian Pork Limited can be partially judged by this price discrepancy.
Politicians are account- able for their actions and honesty as opposed to an A PL executive – who re- lies on secrecy, misleading communication and oc- casional blatant lies to justify their existence to producers.
years ago?
They also said they were
They are a much larger organisation, with mem- bers nationwide and are in a much better position to co-ordinate this program.
Is APL committed to looking after producers’ interests and doing enough to enhance the profitability of producers?
I believe the board has a lot to answer for – failing to give good leadership and for allowing the CEO to dominate the running of APL.
A retired board member told me they were on sev- eral boards, time poor and only had time to check a few bottom lines of the budget – and approved the budget based on that.
Only three board mem- bers personally pay levies and we rely on them to represent producers’ inter- ests – I question if they are doing enough to represent all producers when making board decisions.
What isn’t acknowledged is that the abattoirs, whole- salers and transport indus- tries did the bulk of this w i t h o u t A P L’ s h e l p a n d producers worked with these industries to keep pigs moving through the system.
Happy to receive com- ments from producers – negative or positive – on these and other issues. Andrew Reilly andrew.reilly95@yahoo. com
The APL board has re- duced the number of staff working in the marketing division from 16 to 11, while increasing overall staff numbers by three to a current total 47 employees.
During the last slump in pig prices, Peter Haydon travelled to Britain to at- tend a butchers’ meeting and also visited family and friends – confirmed by Mr Haydon.
The board appointed a CEO who said she knows nothing about the pig in- dustry and also stated that she was invited to join APL.
Again, they were too busy to read APL publications and could not name one research program.
With so many producers disillusioned and discon- nected from APL and with an out of touch Canberra- based organisation, I be- lieve that unless changes are made as to how APL is run, the pig industry will not achieve the prosperity it should – continually wasting producers’ money.
The board is aware that consumer research has re- vealed that one in six pork meals is described as a negative experience by the consumer.
Very few producers be- lieve they get any benefit from research programs – believing the research done is poorly conveyed to producers – and the board won’t disclose the cost of the individual research projects, which makes you wonder what they are afraid of.
I find it interesting that neither the CEO nor the
This is probably the most serious issue facing the in- dustry, yet the board does not appear to be doing anything about it – or even talking about it – and the many producers and del- egates I have spoken to were not aware of this fact.
At this particular time, virtually all producers were losing money, and some were unable to pay for pig food – putting them and their families in an extremely desperate situ- ation.
With the board con- cerned about gender eq- uity, was this appointment based more on gender than experience?
I ask producers and del- egates to consider having APL pay $0.20 of the $3.40 levy to state organisations.
Our chief executive of- ficer has stated that her goal is for pork to overtake chicken as the most con- sumed meat in Australia.
This demonstrates Mr Haydon’s complete lack of care and commitment to producers and the industry.
However, was this an- other case of wasting money on a predetermined outcome – as was the money wasted on running costly meetings to develop the strategic plan for the in- dustry, which had already been predetermined by the board or CEO?
I can only assume they enjoy making them.
This would allow the states to have a strong pro- ducer organisation capable of contributing fresh ideas as well as resolving state- based problems.
Chicken is the cheapest meat in our country and if our goal is to overtake chicken, we are commit- ting ourselves to a low- value product.
Politicians are held to ac- count and there would have been calls for their resigna- tion if they had done some- thing similar – Mr Haydon was given a promotion.
A current board member told me that they do not follow how the CEO spends our levies and could only recall one research program – the importance
The board wants to be on the anti-dumping board – we dump pork on other markets in times of over- supply – gender equity and the culling of wild pigs through Australia.
The state organisation could work more closely with state abattoirs, whole- salers and transport, as well as with state government on environmental and other issues.
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Australian Pork Newspaper, May 2022 – Page 23
With nine well-paid board members and five highly paid executives, we should see some progres- sive and innovative ideas being put forward to sup- port and improve the prof- itability of producers – I believe very little is being done and they are taking the easy option.
too busy to read much of the APL literature.
Our CEO has spoken a lot about APL’s involvement in keeping the pig industry functioning during the pan- demic.
Statutory-funded or- ganisations have a habit of forgetting that they are employed to serve an in- dustry, and adopt the belief that they know everything, ignoring the people who employ them.
Mr Haydon should have been travelling to countries we already export pork to and trying to sell extra
The cattle industry is spread over a much larger portion of the country and
I believe producers would benefit greatly from this, as well as bring new ideas and
The board ran an exten- sive advertising campaign for the new CEO position.
The CEO and board chair continue to want to pro- duce podcasts that very few people listen to – in fact, most don’t know of their existence.
Note – Australia is importing pork from China, home of African swine fever.
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