Australia: Farmers’ Federation Grains Council & and ABB Grain enhance transparency of barley pool

South Australian Farmers’ Federation Grains Council and ABB Grain Ltd agreed on several key principles to enhance transparency of the barley pool, Easygrain reported on August 30 .

The measures which were proposed include developing an ABB pool performance report, providing third-party access to ABB’s barley pool and appointing an independent auditor to review the operations of the pool, ensuring that there is compliance with the key accountability and transparency measures developed in April by the SAFF Grains Council.

Brett Roberts , the SAFF Grains Council chairman said the outcomes from the joint discussions followed the direction from this year’s SAFF Grains AGM for the Council to negotiate various measures on behalf of SA growers.“We want to ensure we preserve the best elements of collective marketing while ensuring that growers are receiving the maximum benefit from the current legislation,” Mr Roberts said.

SAFF Grains Council recommended that ABB provide a Pool Performance Report, which would initially focus on the recently completed 2003/04 pool, to be made available to growers by the end of October. Similar reports would be published annually to keep growers informed of the performance and management of the SA barley pools. “Communication to growers is so important and we are pleased that ABB is working toward delivering a report by October 31,” Mr Roberts said.

Additionally, a working party has begun developing the scope of the independent audit process. The appointment of the auditor will be done through an open tender basis and is expected to include a review of the existing operations and, if required, make recommendations to further improve transparency of the pool.

“At the April Grains Council meeting a list of accountability and transparency measures was developed. It is important that the scope of the brief incorporates these issues as part of the review,” Mr Roberts affirmed.

Talks with ABB also focussed open access to the barley pools, an issue raised in one of the resolutions from the SAFF Grains AGM.“We understand that there will be some trading rules developed by ABB to manage this access issue so that the growers who deliver to the pool are not disadvantaged, and that these rules need to be ratified by the ABB board,” Mr Roberts said.

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