The National Farmers Federation (NFF) is a peak producer organisation. Its
executive has purported to represent all Australian farmers with a unified
voice. This thesis argues that primary producers are too heterogeneous a
group ever to have developed much solidarity in articulation of or action
for the furtherance of common interests and that this fact is reflected in the
NFF.
Heterogeneity results from farm size, product specialisation, level of
technology adopted, geographical location and special needs. Successive
farm organisations and the National Party (and predecessors) have
attempted to encompass these differences since the 1890s. Producer
differences either have led to secession or to unification when political and
economic circumstances have warranted it.
This diversity has prevented farm groups becoming united. The lack of
unity at first prevented all farmers joining in one organisation, and when
they did, they kept on splitting up. The charisma of Ian McLachlan allowed
farmers to get together, but the diversity meant that the getting together
benefited some not only without the others, but sometimes at the expense of
others.
This thesis explores the heterogeneity of the agricultural sector within the
political and economic context of Australian agriculture and discusses its
consequences, in the constant re-forming of farm organisations and the
institutional framework of the NFF in the context of politicisation of
agricultural interest groups.
This thesis concludes that producer differences in terms of size and product
specialisation determine how effectively they are represented. Corporate
farmers have fared much better than family and family-plus farmers, who
would probably be better represented by a small business organisation, with
which they have more in common, rather than a farming organisation.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/219493 |
| Date | January 1990 |
| Creators | Zadnik, Elizabeth, n/a |
| Publisher | University of Canberra. Management |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | ), Copyright Elizabeth Zadnik |
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