If wheat growers fail to establish a grower-owned entity by 1 March 2008, then, the Australian Government will establish alternative marketing arrangements and this will not necessarily be a single desk.

The challenge for wheat growers, then, is to quickly identify what ownership structure will deliver a grower-owned entity and in examining the options it is necessary to analyse what happened with the ownership structure of the Australian Wheat Board.

This is an opportunity, then, for wheat growers to consider co-operative ownership of a marketing body - rather than a private ownership model or the sort of hybrid that contributed to the demise of the Australian Wheat Board.

Co-operative ownership provides real grower ownership and other models might espouse grower-ownership but will, instead, build-in the ingredients of failure. The form of ownership does matter and wheat growers will be wise to avoid the advise of consultants who are either hostile or ignorant of the co-operative model.