THE Federal Government will consider giving the Cattle Council of Australia access to levy funding.
But funding will only be provided oncel other funding options have been exhausted.
CCA executive officer David Inall said Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig was supportive of the council's push to reform national beef industry representation, and that such representation needed to be better funded.
Access to a portion of the compulsory $5-a-head transaction levy for marketing is one of four reforms being promoted by the council to improve the representation for producers of grass-fed beef.
The other three are restructuring the council's board, restructuring the council's policy development and advocacy process, and expanding the membership of the council to include producers who are not members of state affiliated organisations such as the Victorian Farmers Federation.
All four reforms were discussed at a three-day meeting at Fremantle, in Western Australia, last week.
Decisions from the meeting included expanding the council board to 15 directors, of which eight would be directly elected four from the north (Northern Territory and Queensland), one from Western Australia and three from the south (NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania). State farming organisations would appoint the other seven.
The council would also have three membership categories - founding (for SFO), direct and associate.
Mr Inall said one of the challenges for the council was to set a fee for direct membership that was attractive to producers but which didn't undermine the SFO membership, where subscriptions ranged from $500-$1500.
Mr Inall said membership fees were just one part of the funding equation. Another option was fees for services.
But despite contracting its services and the push for direct membership, the council still believes it will need additional funding beyond its current budget of $1.3 million, which it describes as unsustainable.
