BY ALEX BAINBRIDGE
SMITHTON — On August 1, in the largest farmer protest in Tasmania’s history, 500 potato farmers and their supporters converged with tractors, trucks and other farm equipment on the McCain factory in Smithton. The blockade ensured no deliveries went in or out of the factory.
The farmers are demanding an extra $30 per tonne for potatoes. They have not had a price increase for 10 years. In fact, a few years ago, the price they receive was reduced by $8 per tonne to its current level of around $200. The farmers would need double what they are demanding simply to catch up with inflation since then. The products made from the potatoes retail for $9000 or more.
Farmers decided to seek the raise and organise the blockade at a 400-strong meeting in May. Protest organiser Richard Bovill told Green Left that “we realised we had a snow flake’s chance in hell of achieving any rise if we simply sent in a negotiating team”.
The action was carefully organised. Bovill explained that the farmers were surveyed to find out who would participate, who would bring equipment, and who would help organise other farmers to attend.
“We are going for $30 or nothing”, Bovill told GLW. “We don’t want some other offer and we want it this year, not next year.”
One farmer told me that several years ago the processors — McCain and Simplot — would simply say “if you don’t grow them, there are 40 others who will”. Today, however, many farmers are considering changing crops if they don’t get a rise.
The processing companies have claimed that the rise is unjustified because farmers in NZ and the US get paid less than those in Australia. Bovill responded by saying that this is not a good reason to deny a rise. “We are Australian farmers, the processing factories are based in Australia and they’re selling the finished product on the Australian market”, he said.
Bovill also pointed out that, “if that’s the case [that farmers overseas get less than Australian farmers] then they are being screwed too”. He added, “we all need to stick together. We need to be globally united”.
“This is the same as S11" Bovill said. “Some of us have realised that some of the students and radicals are right. We might not approve of their methods, but the issues are the same.”
The most common banners at the protest were “Ah McCain, you’ve done us again” and simply “Simplot sucks”.
The blockade concluded with a packed meeting where farmers resolved to continue their campaign for the full $30 rise. They decided that if the processors hadn’t met their demands within three weeks, the farmers would return again to simultaneously blockade all three processing factories in Tasmania. Other Australian factories may also be targeted.
[This article first appeared in Green Left Weekly #459]
BY ALEX BAINBRIDGE
HOBART — Contracted potato growers have accepted an offer by McCain to pay an extra $22 per tonne this year and another $9 per tonne next year for potatoes. This is an important win even though farmers had originally been demanding a $30 increase this year.
The offer was made on August 16 following a two month campaign including an August 1 blockade of the McCain factory in Smithton.
Simplot, the company to which 75% of growers are contracted, resumed negotiations with the farmers immediately after the McCains offer was announced. The farmers have rejected Simplot’s previous offer of $30 over three years.
Farmers now expect that Simplot will offer them the same deal as McCain (or better). If not, they have vowed to blockade both Simplot factories in Tasmania.
Organiser of the farmers’ campaign, Richard Bovill, told Green Left Weekly that “from a negotiating point of view, it is a reasonable outcome” even though “it was not what we were asking for”.
The farmers have not received a pay rise for 10 years and would have needed $60 per tonne to keep up with inflation over the last decade.
The campaign has been a significant development in combined farmer protest. The farmers have won broad public sympathy and displayed tremendous unity across three states.
Ballarat potato farmers have withdrawn a threat to blockade the McCains factory there. Appreciative of the pay rise, they and other Victorian farmers have pledged to protest outside Simplot’s corporate offices in Melbourne in support of Tasmanian farmers if necessary.
Bovill told GLW that one expected outcome of this dispute is that McCains and Simplot are less likely to take a belligerent attitude towards negotiations in future.
[This article first appeared in Green Left Weekly #461.]
BY ALEX BAINBRIDGE
HOBART — Potato farmers have accepted an increase of $36 per tonne, over three years, made by potato processor Simplot. The deal was struck on September 3 after negotiations that were, in the words of farmers' leader Richard Bovill, like “dragging a big wild bull, kicking and screaming every inch of the way”.
Farmers on August 1 blockaded the McCain processing factory in Smithton in support of their original demand for an extra $30 per tonne on top of the $195 they were previously paid. Farmers then threatened a simultaneous blockade of all McCain and Simplot potato factories in the country if the raise was not forthcoming.
Serious negotiations with Simplot recommenced after farmers agreed on August 16 to an offer of a $31 increase over two years made by McCain. McCain's offer incorporated a $22 increase for the coming season and a $9 increase next year.
The September 3 deal with Simplot includes the same increases and a third increase of $5 the following year. The Simplot deal includes provision for the company to buy potatoes for export at $40 per tonne less than the price for potatoes sold on the domestic market.
Some farmers were disappointed with the deals since their demand for $30 was not an ambit claim. Farmers have not received a pay rise for the last decade and would have needed $60 extra this year just to keep up with inflation.
Since the Simplot deal runs over three years, in future farmers will enter negotiations with the two companies at different times thus excluding the possibility of farmers fighting against both companies at the same time.
The third increase of only $5 per tonne is also rather modest. Bovill argues that it is better to take the offer of an increase now rather than risk getting nothing in three years. “After all, they haven't given us an increase in the last 10 years”, he told Green Left Weekly.
Bovill believes that public support is the greatest asset the farmers have got and that this might not continue if they ask for large increases every year.
According to Bovill, the main justification used by Simplot to stall negotiations was that the company would be uncompetitive if the farmers' demands were accepted. Bovill told Green Left that the reality is that these companies have virtually no competition. “They buy up their competition. They control 50% of the French fry market in the world.”
In practice, Bovill said, the federal government's national competition policy diminishes competition in the countryside. “It gives these [agribusiness] companies extraordinary power over their suppliers.”
Bovill said that while most farmers are conservative in politics, they are not conservative when it comes to taking action and all that is required is the impetus to set them in motion.
[This article first appeared in Green Left Weekly #463.]