Last week representatives from the office of the Horticulture Mediation Advisor and the office of the Produce and Grocery Industry Ombudsman were in Brisbane to promote the role of the disputes resolution and mediation services they offer.

The Horticulture Mediation Advisor is appointed under the Horticulture Code to oversee the operation of the disputes framework under that Code, while the Produce and Grocery Industry Ombudsman oversees the dispute resolution process under the voluntary Produce and Grocery Industry Code (PGICC).

The comment has been made that the PGICC has worked to engage all sectors of the industry having a cooperative approach to addressing industry issues.

This includes action to resolve disputes within the retail grocery industry, with some 70 complaint enquiries received throughout the past 12 months.

This occurs within a framework which is free from the threat of ACCC intervention and legal action. The Horticulture Mediation Advisor reported that there have been a total of just 18 enquiries from fruit and vegetable growers across Australia since the introduction of the Horticulture Code over 12 months ago.

Of these enquiries, there were only 4 requests for mediation.

These requests occurred within the adversarial and prescriptive framework which exists under the Horticulture Code of Conduct, and the threat of action by the ACCC where breaches of the Code occur. It is ironic that in an industry with a wholesale turnover exceeding $5 billion, with some 900 wholesalers/traders and 17,000 growers, there have only been four requests for mediation since the Code was introduced.

This is far less than the 1000 that had been predicted by those who advocated the need for a separate mandatory Code, as an alternative to the PGICC.

It is also ironic that there have now been more actions progressed by the ACCC for technical breaches of the requirements of the Code, then there have been actual mediations for commercial disputes between growers and wholesalers.

At some point, the question has to be asked if the Horticulture Code is more of a witch hunt then actually working to address the objectives underlying its introduction.

If there are few commercial complaints, is it appropriate that the Code exists to generate technical breaches relating to wholesaler/trader non-compliance with a range of requirements, many of which are anticompetitive and/or unworkable, so as to pave the way for enforcement action by the ACCC?

Furthermore, if the Produce and Grocery Industry Code is now being recognised as facilitating good levels of cooperation across various sectors of the industry and a high level of effectiveness as has been indicated by the statements of a number of grocery sector representatives, including the likes of Stuart Swaddling, Chairman of the Horticulture Australia Council, then perhaps it is time for the Government to question whether the PGICC offers more of a productive, acceptable and workable industry based alternative to addressing Horticulture Industry issues than the Horticulture Code.