FORTHRIGHT Central Queensland cattle producer and beef processor Josie Angus has taken aim at industry regulators, saying supply chains are better driven by "family values".
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Speaking at the Rural Press Club of Queensland's International Rural Women's Day celebrations, Mrs Angus said the seven year development of the Angus family's on-farm processing facility at Clermont had been hampered by excessive regulation.
"All the way from our council DA to our current battle for export licencing our country's approach to regulation actually favours corporates over families," Mrs Angus said
"Give us an outcome and we can jump it by a country mile.
"Give us a focus on endless reams of paperwork and systems and we do tend to falter.
"We are in fact penalised by our size."
The Signature Onfarm meatworks is designed to process about 80 cattle a day. However, Mrs Angus said a quality driven approach suggested 50-60 head a day was a more comfortable level to "maximise value".
Part of that challenge has also been attracting the required 80 staff. Currently there are just 30.
However, Mrs Angus said it was the approach of regulators that was the greatest challenge.
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She said while Signature Onfarm was driven by innovation, those same innovations had proven a barrier to obtaining export licences, meaning export cattle were still being processed at Casino in NSW.
"The triumphant tone when a departmental official says 'it took so-and-so three years to get their US licence' is pretty eye opening," Mrs Angus said.
Mrs Angus said Australia was a champion at high-bar regulation.
"And I'd have no problem with that if we actually did something with it," she said.
The triumphant tone when a departmental official says 'it took so-and-so three years to get their US licence' is pretty eye opening.
- Josie Angus, Signature Onfarm
"I can't tell you my frustration when a regulator stands there and says you need to do something because the USA said so.
"When you ask the question have you been through a US plant? It really boggles your mind when the answer is "of course, US plants are notoriously bad for that. They're way behind us"."
Mrs Angus also took aim at corporate, social, environment governance principals, saying they were a major threat to landholders' rights to sustainably manage vegetation.
"Corporate ESG is potential way more damaging than previous government attacks on vegetation management," she said.
Mrs Angus said the risk was the world's largest index funds, such the US$10 trillion BlackRock and the US$7 trillion The Vanguard Group, would use ESG to dictate both government and corporate policy, including in agricultural supply chains.
"Given the failure of successive governments to deal with these monopolistic behemoths through effective competition policy, maybe the time has come to build our own island," Mrs Angus said.
"To wrest back control of our supply chains into family sized bites. Local control, with local knowledge, local investment and local heart.
"Nothing is more important to our sustainability than families."
