Powering towards a Queensland Dairy Plan

The first round of district meetings has been completed on the path to developing Queensland’s Dairy Plan. As well, online input has been opened, and one on one meetings with key stakeholders (like processors, SubTropical Dairy, and more) are well underway.

EastAUSmilk members and others have already shown plenty of interest, with around 120 people attending the various meetings.

Queensland needs an effective dairy industry plan to make sure Queenslanders can drink fresh local milk into the future, that farmers run profitable businesses, and their communities remain vibrant.

Right now, that’s not where we are. We have the smallest average dairy herd size of all states, our farms produce just 45% of the milk Queenslanders consume, we’ve got only 40% of the farms we had in 2011, and too many farmers are struggling to make a decent income.

EastAUSmilk, the three largest milk processors (Lactalis, Norco and Bega), Dairy Farmers Milk Co‑operative, SubTropical Dairy, and Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, make up the Advisory Group steering development of the Plan. They all want to bring the industry together to lift production, increase farmgate profitability and drive efficiencies throughout the supply chain.

With the input from those meetings and online proposals, the Advisory Group will shortly begin drawing out the big themes and big ideas, coming up with the priorities, and drafting the plan. It is expected to cover ways to address that decline, how to make farmer and processor investment and planning decisions easier, actions to build the economic viability of dairy farming and processing and building confidence in the future of the industry.

Once there is a draft Plan, there will be a further round of consultation, including district meetings, to explain what’s in it and why, and get proposals for further change.

The final plan, or a very well-developed draft, is expected by late August. That’s an ambitious timeframe, but we think we can make it happen.

There’s more information about the plan and the process of developing it, on the eastAUSmilk website.

Mike Smith, eastAUSmilk Government Relations Manager