The nation's niche deer farming for meat industry will be asked to contribute just 0.0005 per cent towards the government's new $51.8 million Biosecurity Protection Levy - or $265 per annum.
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After pointing to the paltry contribution, Senator Matt Canavan asked Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry officials appearing before a Senate inquiry into the levy whether an impact analysis had been performed before adding venison to the list.
"We are going to pass legislation... to charge an entire industry $265. Have you done a cost-benefit study on whether that is a useful spend of our administration dollars here?" he said.
But the new levy is just the latest of the industry's problems, according to Deer Industry Association of Australia president Andrew McKinnon, and only serves to remind farmers how little money is left in the game.
For starters the industry is overwhelmingly composed of mainly mixed farmers chasing a side hustle, with his own Mt Gambier operation predominantly running sheep.
However, he said things had become "very, very hard" after local abattoirs stopped killing live deer for farmers in February despite continuing to process wild deer shot by licensed harvesters.
Mr McKinnon said deer farmers like himself though cannot take matters into their own hands as it is only legal to shoot deer outside fence lines, "I cannot shoot them on the inside of my wire".
"If we cannot find another abattoir then I don't know what will happen, interest rates are up and you cannot afford to feed them and you cannot let them go out the front gate because that is illegal as well," he said.
The closest abattoir was three hours drive away, now the closest he could theoretically use is five hours drive but the difficulty is getting into the facility within the tight windows that the animals can be processed.
The result has been an ever-increasing number of commercial harvesters cashing in on state government pro-eradication policies and deregulation of deer hunting rules, including lifting restrictions on kills, are now supplying "well-over" 50 per cent of venison sold on the domestic market.
A kicker is that commercial harvesters have few of the overheads of farmers and also do not contribute to the industry levy scheme.
Another is that Mr McKinnon has not sold venison for export for at least seven years and that demand for deer meat took a devastating hit with restaurant closures during the COVID-era that have not recovered.
"We are having an awful run really, the margins have become very ordinary," Mr McKinnon said.
"Commercial harvesters can sell a carcass and it has only cost them a bullet and petrol to go and get it.
"We have to pay the fuel, the farm running costs, wages, super, the rates on the land, the cost of keeping the deer for two years, and all the other costs, we simply cannot compete in the same market with wild shot deer."
Meanwhile, DAFF officials confirmed last week that the venison industry was one of several commodities it had yet to speak with despite the BPL's looming July 1 start date.
Most states have launched deer culling programs but experts say their numbers are far outpacing control efforts.
More than 118,000 feral deer were harvested in Victoria in 2021 and the Invasive Species Council have rated deer as probably Australia's worst emerging pest animal problem, causing damage to the natural environment and agricultural businesses.
A recent report estimated feral deer, who compete with livestock for grass, run up a $90m annual damage bill across Australia, mainly to farming operations.
A draft national feral deer action plan released in 2022 found in the past 20 years, Australia's deer population has risen from 200,000 to upwards of two million.
The sale of game meat for human consumption however worries Mr McKinnon as "the biggest threat for a deer farmer is wild shot deer" and the potential for reputational damage caused should chemicals deer ingest while passing through farms be passed on.
Deer farmers were pulled into the biosecurity protection levy when the government changed the calculation method to a proportion of gross value of production to make the system more equitable.
"The levy is a disgrace, it is the principle and sets a precedent. It just annoys me, it always comes back to farmers and we are already doing it really, really tough," he said.
Deer meat is the lowest of all BLP contributors at $265, the next is ratites, or mostly flightless birds like emus, at $372. The next lowest livestock contributors are buffalo ($7100) and the highest is cattle and calves at $9.3m.
The industry slaughter levy is currently an 8 cent contribution towards testing, traceability and research and development.
Farmers do not however want commercial harvesters in the levy scheme given they are the competition and would automatically access research and funds they had spent years raising.
The South Australian government estimated $36m in farm productivity losses in 2023 alone and is hoping to eradicate wild deer from the state by 2032, mainly through aerial culling. Farm damage is predicted to rise to $242m by 2031 if numbers are not contained.
Authorities estimated last year that there were about 40,000 feral deer in the state, mostly concentrated on the Limestone Coast, The Hills and Fleurieu Peninsula.
According to the ISC, Victoria now hosts an ever-growing population of feral deer numbering around one million animals and covering nearly 40 per cent of the state.
