THE VFF president and two "external persons" will recommend commodity council appointments to the board, under a new constitution being put to a membership vote.
Copies of the constitution released to VFF members last week show commodity council presidents will no longer have an "as of right position" on the board.
Each commodity council, and the combined small commodities, will instead be restricted to nominating two candidates to fill VFF board positions.
The nominations committee (the VFF president and the two external persons), will then assess the skills of the nominees and recommend to the board the appointments "that provide a balance of needed skills and experience".
The VFF board will then appoint the directors.
The reforms, being put to a membership vote on February 24, are part of a VFF restructure that tries to align the federation with a new corporate model.
But members of the federation's largest commodity group, the United Dairyfarmers of Victoria, oppose many of the constitutional reforms.
The UDV's northern district councils have been joined by others from the state's southwest and Gippsland in raising fears the reforms will weaken the commodity groups' controls over policy, services, funds and staff.
The northern UDV district councils have issued a paper that warns under the VFF reforms "ultimate power seems to rest with the VFF board, which is a stark move away from a member-based organisation to a corporate organisation". One of the key arguments from the UDV is its members contribute $1.3 million to $1.4 million a year in levies and represent a third of VFF members, yet under the constitution they are given just one of the eight votes around the boardroom table.
However, VFF president Andrew Broad said the UDV was quite involved in drawing up the constitution.
"My view of it is the UDV and (other) commodity groups will be strengthened in the constitution," Mr Broad said.
"The issue is this is where we've got to now, how do we strengthen dairy representation across the state."
