IT’S nearly 18 years since the Australian Meat and Livestock Corporation (AMLC) and its stablemate, the Meat Research Corporation, were axed by the then Primary Industries Minister, John Anderson.
The two statutory bodies, funded by compulsory levies on livestock producers and meat processors totalling $120 million a year, were wound up in June 1998 to make way for a smaller, less costly, producer-owned service delivery body: Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA).
Among the casualties of the changeover was the AMLC managing director, Dr Bruce Standen, whose 20-year career with that company came to an abrupt end as a replacement took charge of the new organisation.
But having been made a Member of the Order of Australia in the 2016 Australia Day honours, Dr Standen can afford to reflect with some satisfaction on the AMLC’s achievements during his watch.
Dr Standen was honoured, according to his award citation, for “significant service to primary industry, particularly to agricultural economics, sustainability, and research”.
The citation might well have added, “for heading up and keeping on track a multi-disciplined corporation which, despite being answerable to often-conflicting industry sectors, managed to play a key role in revolutionising the operating fundamentals of Australia’s beef and sheep meat industries”.
Speaking with The Land at the “Karingal” cattle property at Hartley of his erstwhile AMLC chairman and ongoing client and friend, Dick Austen, Dr Standen said the AMLC had been “right for the times”.
It had embarked on ambitious and controversial reforms at a time when both the beef and sheep meat industries were beset with problems, and in doing, had thereby paved the way for their modern-day success stories.
“Today we see the meat and livestock sectors in the best position they’ve been in for many decades, and the fundamentals look set to remain positive for at least the next five years,” he said.
“It’s a field ripe for investment, but unfortunately our local institutions and fund managers lack the long-term vision we see in offshore investors, and shy away from agriculture because of its year-to-year uncertainty.
“They should be alert to the investment opportunities in the meat and livestock sectors that are now on offer, and get involved.”
Reflecting on past events, Dr Standen said the writing had been on the wall for the AMLC during its latter stages, as a deregulatory mood was sweeping along the corridors of power.
“A statutory body like the AMLC that still collected compulsory levies from industry and had licensing powers over exporters was an attractive target,” he said.
Yet, despite their stated intentions to support themselves on member funds, the processor/exporter industry bodies that replaced AMLC were themselves forced to resort again to statutory levies within three years.
An agricultural economist by background, Dr Standen joined the AMLC in 1978 following a 14-year stint with the NSW Department of Agriculture.
He was appointed to set up an economics and finance division, where he oversaw the development of strategic plans for the beef and sheep meat industries that would guide later developments.
In 1984 Dick Austen was appointed by the then Primary Industries Minister, John Kerin, to chair a new-look AMLC with a wide charter for reform.
Peter Frawley was head-hunted from CSR to be the new managing director, and following the appointment of other key personnel to manage specific agendas, a bold program of initiatives was set in train. Dr Standen was appointed deputy managing director in 1985, and managing director – a position he would hold for the next nine years - following Frawley’s departure in 1989.
As such, he was closely involved in the major initiatives of the Austen-led AMLC: the opening of the Japanese and Korean beef markets, the pioneering of lamb exports to the United States, the roll-out of CALM (now AuctionsPlus) and AUS-MEAT, and the ground-breaking domestic promotion campaigns that changed consumer attitudes to red meat. It was the signing of the so-called Andriessen Accord in Brussels in 1985, in which the European Union agreed to stop exporting subsidised beef to traditional Australian export markets, that kick-started Australia’s beef export revolution. Within five years, 20 per cent of Australia’s beef exports – which had consisted entirely of grinding beef for the US hamburger market – were of high-quality product destined for family restaurants in East Asia.
Along with this change in export focus was a revolution on-farm, where cattle producers were being educated by CALM and processor feedback data to the mysteries of product description and market specification.
The prime lamb market, an industry plagued by domestic over-supply and poor consumer perceptions, was revitalised by an export push into the US, centred on a new concept: “large lean lamb”.
As well as reducing producers’ reliance on the domestic market, the opening-up of lamb exports drove a revolution in the type of lamb we were producing.
Apart from these sector-specific advances, Dr Standen said the AMLC in the 1980s and ‘90s played an important advocacy role for the red meat industry, both with government and the wider community.
Since quitting the AMLC, Dr Standen has kept himself busy with consultancy work, both for government and private clients, drawing on his long experience in marketing, research and commercial diplomacy.
Having recently driven with his wife Elizabeth through much of the Riverina and Victoria, he says the top priority for national project funding should be the upgrading infrastructure across southern Australia.
“The Nationals talk about developing northern Australia, but it’s southern Australia where immediate investment is needed,” he said.