I often shake my head in despair at some agents and a small group of store buyers who have no hesitation in using regular meat buyers to buy store lambs, sheep or cattle for them, but then in the next breath whinge about the lack of competition at auction sales.
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I have no problems with the meat buyers who participate in these little charades - they usually do the job with the full knowledge and confidence that the livestock they buy will come back through their works at a later date when there is a more urgent need for numbers. And, the actual buyer - the person paying the bill - has a certain degree of comfort in knowing that the buyer will feel a sense of responsibility and virtually guarantee a profit.
This sounds like a win-win for everybody. Everybody, that is, except the poor vendor of the stock being bought in the first place.
This time of year is a prime example of how the system should work. With hay being cut and carted and harvest imminent, there are a myriad of agents and private buyers trying to secure crossbred and Merino lambs to finish on stubbles or grain.
This week it was the agent in green livery from Riverton versus the red of Gladstone. These agents had plenty of ammunition in their respective magazines and when the right article appeared they were prepared to open fire. One processor in particular who dislikes being beaten by anyone would join in the battle but was usually the first casualty, as the agents almost always prevailed when they entered the fray.
Add to this a few bit players from Roseworthy, Loxton, Gawler and Yorke Peninsula and you have what was a very buoyant sale for the store lambs that were the principal component of the sale.
I've lost count of the times cattle producers have whinged to me about the perceived lack of competition in saleyards, but a couple of them have been guilty of schmoozing prominent buyers who quite happily buy their store cattle. For their part, I imagine they are very happy to part with a small cash fee for the service instead of competing in a bidding duel. I know that it makes perfect business sense to operate this way but it makes a complete mockery of the auction system. It happens at every saleyard I have attended.
Of course it is nothing new - through the years there has been a gradual growth of commission buyers. The prototype for the modern-day commission buyer is to have a fist full of orders from meat processing companies.
The general consensus is that the more buyers there are in the marketplace, the better.
Unfortunately, the number of buyers exceeds the number of actual buyers and it won't come as a surprise that nobody has ever seen a commission buyer bid against himself to satisfy another of his orders.
I know it is easy to have a rant about a problem that nearly everybody knows about - the difficult part is to find a solution. Wiser men than I will say there is no problem that is insoluble, but I would like the aforementioned wise men to find the answer to this problem because it is a situation that costs producers money!
