Some Western Victorian UDV members have threatened to resign over the UDV's role in supporting the development of a new dairy plan and some northern Victorian members have expressed disquiet over the direction the plan is taking.
UDV president Paul Mumford has told Country News it will not be making any major decisions on the plan until it can engage face-to-face with members when COVID-19 restrictions ease.
He said the online "roadshow" engaging all branches across the state was to bring members up to date on a range of issues, and agreed the dairy plan was one of the hot topics of conversation.
The round of meetings on video conferencing started with northern Victoria last week (September 16) and will continue with north-east Victoria, followed by Gippsland and western Victoria.
He said work was being carried out on a model for advocacy, but no proposal had been developed.
“There is nothing to comment on, so we can't jump at shadows,” Mr Mumford said.
The UDV was favouring a voting system on the plan, which would give one person one vote, rather than the historic model of tying voting numbers to kilograms of milk solids produced.
Asked if other stakeholders were prepared to wait for the UDV face-to-face consultation, Mr Mumford said at the end of the day, for the plan to be successful, farmers had to have their say.
Numurkah UDV branch secretary Bridget Goulding expressed disappointment with the level of engagement on the plan and was also uncomfortable with the final recommendation from the joint committee.
There was only one model recommended, so it appeared farmers would not get the choice of choosing a model.
The weight given to the role of processors in the proposed plan was also concerning some members.
Numurkah UDV branch president Greg Brooks is also concerned at how the organisation shares details of discussions going on at policy level.
He said minutes of policy council meetings were no longer available to members.
Mr Mumford said the parent body, the VFF, had stopped the access to the minutes and although he had argued against the change the UDV had to comply.
He said the UDV had routinely circulated an executive summary of the policy meetings to UDV members.
UDV Wannon branch policy councillor Oonagh Kilpatrick has resigned from Policy Council and vice-president and deputy policy councillor Bernie Free has resigned from the UDV.
Branch president Bruce Knowles said he was disappointed by the resignations, but he understood and shared their concerns.
In her letter of resignation, Mrs Kilpatrick said she had struggled with a “lack of accountability and transparency back to members throughout Victoria, especially with the Australian Dairy Plan (ADP)”.
Mrs Kilpatrick said a united dairy farmer-only advocacy body was needed, but would not be achieved by the ADP.
17°C