A LOCAL producer has offered support for a campaign to get Woolworths to give refunds to struggling farmers.
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The Lagoon market gardener Jeff McSpedden, who used to grow broccoli for Coles, says profit margins for those selling produce to the big supermarkets are so slim that farmers cannot afford any change at all.
Mr McSpedden gave away selling broccoli to Coles some years ago because it wasn’t worth his while.
These days he only grows corn for the Simplot plant in Bathurst and has expanded his interest in fat lambs on his property about 20 kilometres to the south of the city.
Mr McSpedden is a fomer board member of the AUSVEG organisation and is serving on the industry advisory committee with Horticulture Australia.
AUSVEG, the leading horticultural body representing Australia’s 9000 vegetable and potato growers, has written to celebrity chef Jamie Oliver requesting that he asks Woolworths to give refunds to struggling farmers who have contributed to a massive new marketing campaign.
AUSVEG last week went public with revelations Woolworths was asking vegetable growers to contribute an additional 40 cents-per-crate of produce supplied to the retailer, to help fund the comprehensive marketing campaign, involving Mr Oliver.
Growers supplying Woolworths already pay up to five per cent of the value of their produce to the retailer for marketing. This extra 40 cent charge equates to approximately an additional 2.5 per cent for marketing.
The extra 2.5 per cent in real terms represents about 30 to 40 per cent of their profit margin.
Mr McSpedden said yesterday that AUSVEG was within its rights to make such statements, based on complaints from growers.
AUSVEG public affairs manager William Churchill said the organisation was appealing to Mr Oliver’s good nature.
“We have no issue with Mr Oliver, but for Woolworths to ask hard-working Australian growers to stump up this additional money is unreasonable, unfair and un-Australian,” he said.
“Mr Oliver seems like a reasonable man, and he has done some good work in raising awareness about the need to eat healthy food, and this appeal to him is to try and stop growers from being unnecessarily squeezed.”
Mr Churchill said many farmers had already contributed money to the campaign and had been left significantly out of pocket.
