Attempts by a farmers' group to reorganise the way red meat is processed and exported appear to have run into a brick wall.
John McCarthy, chairman of the Meat Industry Excellence (MIE) group, says opponents of the plan to rationalise the industry by merging the main processor companies appear to see the initiative as politically motivated.
MIE was formed just over two years ago when about 1000 farmers in Gore stood in support of a reform process.
The campaign spread, and after two electoral cycles MIE now has three of the five farmer directorships on Silver Fern Farms (SFF) and two on the Alliance Group (AGL) board - the main two meat processors MIE seeks to combine.
McCarthy says the MIE factor has also lifted voter participation in such elections from the mid-teen range to more than 60per cent.
"This has been an incredible journey, we have met and made some great friends along the way, and we have uncovered some very real home truths and become very aware of the joined dots protecting the status quo," he told delegates to a Ministry for Primary Industries conference in May.
"We are all volunteers and worse still no one seems to want to pay us. For example, we were turned down [for funding] by AgMardt on the grounds we were too political, a sentiment echoed to me by the Beef & Lamb chairman.
This beggars belief really - what is political about trying to revitalise the second-biggest export earner? How can that be a bad thing?
"Furthermore, we're excluded from the farmer-funded Red Meat Sector Conference. While this is a slap in the face for MIE, more significantly it is a slap for its levy-payers, given they supported the funding for the document [Pathways to Long-term Sustainability].
"I think it is fair to say that, in terms of the public face of reform, MIE has been at the forefront for the past two years. To be shut out by our own representative body smacks of something less than reassuring."
He says MIE is confident it has demonstrated through farmer support and through the information in its report as to the why reform is necessary.
"The question now asked by farmers and others is about the how."
McCarthy suggests the aims of MIE can be met through a blending of the best and the worst bits of the two main co-operatives, SFF and AGL.
"As it is still at the conceptual stage, let's call this new company NewCo. In essence, NewCo would have at its core a commitment to what should be the co-operative principles of transparency in pricing, loyalty to its members, and scale and size to drive that New Zealand provenance story.
"Its existence would be predicated on committed, contracted supply - probably for a period of between three and five years. It would be open to all farmers to join and would include store farmers within its bubble."
He says membership would have various payment options.
"With support of one of New Zealand's leading banks, our financial modelling shows NewCo is not just viable, but would be the catalyst to reinvigorate the entire sector - a company turning over $4 billion-plus within four years and exporting 95 per cent of this under new, reinvigorated customer-focused branding strategies.
"Most importantly, [there would be] a significant lift in processor margins, EBIT [earnings before interest and tax] and NPAT [net profit after taxes], along with substantial increases at the farm gate."
He says tinkering with a solution will simply postpone the inevitable. "Farmers do not want foreign dominance and control taking over ever-larger chunks of New Zealand's meat processing sector.
"We have innumerable examples of what not to do, our geography, our climate and our provenance make us unique and yet we seem intent on replicating the mistakes of where others have gone before.
"For example, an over-dependence on China has effectively gutted the Australian mining potential, the same is applicable to logs and wool, in part to dairying, and we seem determined to send our meat down the same path.
A foreign and corporate dominance has crippled the family farm and the co-operative farming structures across the agricultural spectrum in Australia. Lemming-like, we seem determined to follow that lead."
McCarthy says research shows there is strong support for a single meat co-operative of scale.
"Farmers aren't likely to invest further in today's failed red-meat model, but will consider investing to retain ownership and control in a new entity that is aimed at boosting future returns under a new co-operative model."
Although MIE has three directors elected to the SFF board, the co-operative is not actively working on the MIE proposal. SFF chief executive Dean Hamilton says the focus is on getting on with business in what is a busy time for the sector.
"We are running our new capital-raising process and we are committed to seeing that through. We have done our own work [into the MIE Pathways document] and feel there is nothing materially new in it."
A group of SFF shareholders has requisitioned a meeting to determine if there is sufficient shareholder interest to investigate the MIE proposal further. It is believed a similar meeting has been requisitioned at AGL.
AGL declined to comment because of the time delay between writing this article and its publication date.