A new national dairy plan will attempt to bolster the industry's advocacy efforts, improve marketing, enhance trust between stakeholder and attempt to attract new people to the sector.
A draft of the plan was released for comment last Friday in Gippsland.
The report noted the industry's advocacy efforts are fragmented and lack unity
"There are many industry bodies in various jurisdictions that are advocating to achieve different objectives.''
"The number of organisations combined with the fragmented industry structure has worked against unified advocacy and made it difficult to deliver a ‘one industry, one voice’ outcome. In turn, this has often resulted in government receiving mixed signals on the issues that really matter for the industry,'' the report stated.
Advocacy was one of the recurring themes in the dairy plan consultations held around the country.
On the basis of modest growth projections, the Dairy Plan will support around 1 billion litres of additional national milk production annually by 2025, worth over $600 million per annum to dairy farmers. This additional growth will stimulate the creation of at least 1,000 direct new jobs, mostly in rural and regional areas.A final version of the Australian Dairy Plan will be published in March 2020. It will include the recommendations of the Joint Transition Team on reform of industry structure and advocacy arrangements which will be released for feedback in January 2020.
Dairy Australia Chair Jeff Odgers said: “The big investment we made in industry engagement and listening has enabled us to identify common themes and agree on priority issues to help reset the future direction of dairy.
"The draft Dairy Plan contains initiatives we believe can make a significant impact, including a whole of supply chain approach to a new national marketing and promotion campaign that can double the size and scope of our current marketing activities. There is a strong focus on attracting new entrants to the industry and assisting with skills building. The Dairy Plan process has also confirmed that we are doing many fundamental things well and we look forward to supporting the implementation of the final version of the Plan when it is published in March 2020.,'' Mr Odgers said.