Australia-Farmers unusual legal claims.

AUSTRALIA-AN UNUSUAL LEGAL BATTLE FOR FARMERS.

A SYDNEY solicitor is taking the meat marketing issue into his own hands, running ads in The Land newspaper, NSW, in the past fortnight telling cattle producers they are not getting the price their cattle are worth and urging farmers to join his fight for better labelling.

While Norman Hunt is not new to the fight over meat grading standards, he has a new website making his case for new regulatory grading and labelling standards for beef.

He also gave evidence at the last hearing of the Senate inquiry investigating meat marketing, held in Melbourne at the end of last month.

Mr Hunt told the inquiry an Australian National Beef Grading System "is an idea that is 40 years overdue".

"The cost benefit to the Australian beef industry of a national beef grading scheme is overwhelming," Mr Hunt said.

"In recent years, per capita beef consumption has increased or broken even in countries with beef grading or legislation limiting the age which cattle can be killed for the domestic market.

"But its declined in countries such as Australia and New Zealand which have no beef grading system or rely on voluntary schemes.

"…the Meat Industry Strategic Plan forecast in 1996 that the introduction of a consumer-orientated beef grading system would provide a $1.2 billion annual pay out to the Australian beef industry.

"This giant windfall can be achieved at current retail prices if every person in Australia eats just one extra serving of beef every three weeks.

"Industry sources estimate that up to 30-40pc of the beef sold on the Australian domestic market comes from old cows that have ended their breeding cycle.

"As incongruous it seems, the Australian consumer is the only consumer who eats table beef from Australian animals with eight permanent teeth."

Mr Hunt said as a consequence, consumer dissatisfaction with poor quality steak sets the price for both the good and the bad "and there is little or no differentiation between the price paid to cattle producers for their old cows and the price paid to them for young steers".

Mr Hunt’s blog site www.huntblog.com.au had received 420 hits in two weeks since the ad first appeared.

He says he believes the Senators were in favour of a national grading system.

It’s also being pushed in NSW by Independent MP Richard Torbay, and the NSW Government is also advocating a national system with Primary Industries counterparts from across the country.

The Senate inquiry, led by NSW Liberal Senator Bill Heffernan, has now finished hearings and will report to Government before the end of June this year.