eastAUSmilk value in membership
The most common question I hear when talking to a farmer about becoming a member of eastAUSmilk is what value do I really get for my money?
The answer is actually a lot. Many see eastAUSmilk as necessary to ensure government, processors and retailers take the views of the dairy industry seriously when making policy decisions around the farm gate milk price, environment, animal welfare, a fair market to trade our product in and the general right to farm. There has been a tremendous value returned to the farm gate milk price with the end of $1 a litre milk and the introduction of the mandatory code of conduct that has seen considerable genuine competition for milk.
Would these things have been achieved without a strong member-based industry organisation? I would say no.
Yet there are many more benefits in being a member of eastAUSmilk than just the big picture achievements for the whole dairy industry.
We offer many direct services including employment advice through a qualified consultant, discounted NLIS tags, irrigation system efficiency testing, electricity pricing comparison to get the best deal and one of our partners can provide advice on a solar system to give you the quickest payback not just the most expensive system. Perhaps the most important is our team can assist in identifying funding opportunities and assisting in completing the forms correctly for disaster relief and other government grant programs.
Our key projects at the moment that often follow on from direct services in the form of grants are the Digital Activity Monitoring Program (cow collars), Farm Business Resilience Program (drought preparedness including infrastructure grants) and Energy Savers Plus which includes grants for improving energy efficiency after the audit of systems.
In coming weeks many of you will see our new membership packs out in the dairy community and all I can say is being a member of eastAUSmilk will bring a bucket load of value to your dairy business.
Matt Trace - President eastAUSmilk