AS CBH grower groups meetings continue, Australian Grains Champion (AGC) founding director John Corbett spoke to the Pastoralists and Graziers Association of Western Australia (PGA) last Friday about its proposal and what it could mean for CBH members.
At the time of going to print, 18 of the 24 CBH grower meetings have been held, with final meetings to be held in Northampton, Mingenew, Hyden, Corrigin, Perenjori and Coorow.
CBH has reported "strong numbers" of growers attending the meetings and similar in numbers to meetings held in March.
CBH chief financial officer Ed Kalajzic said some meetings had more than 75 growers in attendance to discuss the potential structural and governance changes to the co-operative.
Mr Kalajzic said most questions were focused on moving the co-operative from its current non-distributive cooperative structure to a distributing cooperative.
"It has been a really balanced discussion and it has been great that growers have taken the opportunity to review the CBH structure and governance booklet prior to attending," he said.
"It has really enriched the discussion."
He said following the meetings growers would be asked to participate in a survey to be released later this month, providing feedback on the co-operative's direction.
At the PGA meeting Mr Corbett said it was important for WA growers to "contemplate and debate alternate structures for the CBH business".
He said the purpose of the AGC proposal was to "raise the debate" and it had been put together by growers, for growers, with the potential to "transform the industry".
"The release of capital that comes from of the transaction has the potential to dramatically transform where the industry is at and where it is going on a multitude of levels," Mr Corbett said.
"From an AGC perspective is that it unlocks value for farmers and gets equity on their balance sheet to further develop their farm business.
"From a grower's perspective, it provides a strengthened balance sheet and allows CBH to develop itself to become a global player with the capacity to take it up to the big five players.
"As a corporate business it would provide ongoing dividends and becomes an attractive asset to retain as an investment and the business would be very much focused on continuing to look after and service growers to help the production base thrive."
Mr Corbett said increased global competition with low costs of production meant that it was essential that growers looked at ways to reduce costs in order to remain competitive.
"We have had fairly flat productivity growth in the sector for quite some time.
"Meanwhile we've got competition that is developing very quickly and becoming far more efficient.
"So the strategy for the industry today and ongoing is how do we move ourselves down the cost curve and become more efficient over time and drive our cost base down so we don't have to worry so much about the price cycle?"
Mr Corbett said one of the key concerns raised was the "loss of grower control" - something he said the proposal had dealt with.
"At the end of the day growers control the resource and the bottom line is that unless the business delivers to the grower a competitive, flexible and evolving supply chain, growers will find other ways to market or other parties will come in and create other alternate paths to market.
"Whether CBH is a co-operative or a company it must have growers at its centre.
"Without growers you don't have the tonnages and without the tonnages you don't have the business - it is as simple as that.
"If as a business you don't find ways to help the growers to become more profitable and grow bigger crops, you will fail to deliver on what you ought to be as a company to be successful."
He said while the AGC offer was a fully-formed proposal, it needed CBH's involvement to complete the process as part of due diligence and offer growers the opportunity to "yes or no".
"We believe it is a balanced proposal but growers need to see the full proposal and make their own assessment.
"If they don't like it at that stage they can vote no but we argue that growers should at least have the opportunity to see it.
He warned that while the AGC proposal was on the table for growers, there was still the opportunity for competing storage and handling businesses to move into WA.
"What has been beneficial is that the mother of all mining booms meant that the cost of construction went through the roof so it caused a competitor who was contemplating doing anything to step back," he said.
"It's now an open field - if someone wants to build something the cost of construction is coming down very rapidly and it is game on if they want to.
"If growers want this proposal on the table they must stand up for it. We believe growers should have the opportunity to at least view the full proposal.
"If it is as bad as it has been made out by some, growers will vote no but at least they will have made a conscience decision with all the knowledge."