Dairy strategy the way ahead for New Zealand
The Dairy Industry Strategy provides a blueprint for New Zealand to leap up the league tables of the OECD. The New Zealand Dairy Industry, over the last decade, has started to unlock value from the commodities it produces and the markets it sells into.
“Federated Farmers congratulates DairyNZ for its work leading the strategy’s development,” says Willy Leferink, Federated Farmers Dairy vice-chairman.
“As leaders of the dairy industry, Federated Farmers welcomes the collaborative effort to chart dairy’s future course. The consultation with Federated Farmers, processors and with individual farmers has been refreshing and positive.
“By working with one another, we have crafted a comprehensive and thoughtful document that is light years ahead of the previous version. It’s a genuine blueprint for economic advancement.
“Environmental factors represent both the biggest threat and opportunity for the dairy industry. To paraphrase former United States President, Bill Clinton, it’s the environment, stupid.
“Environmental stewardship is something that is an increasing part of the industry. Environmental mitigation is increasingly demanded by consumers who must also accept that this costs money.
“Federated Farmers believes there are fantastic opportunities for the industry to show how transparent, open and accountable it is on environmental factors.
“A key factor in the strategy relates to our biggest resource, human capital. This is getting the best qualified, most astute and responsible employees into the industry.
“Those people are the future employees, scientists, advisers, marketers, sharemilkers and dairy farm owners.
“The future of dairy is all about intellectual property as a market and customer-led industry.
“This means that Federated Farmers, DairyNZ, Fonterra, Westland and the other processors have a responsibility to promote dairy as an attractive, vibrant and go-ahead industry.
“We need to engage with schools. The evolution of Federated Farmers Farm Day provides a mechanism to complement the great work being done by DairyNZ and the Industry Training Organisation.
“Rather than competing, the bodies within the dairy industry cooperate. Federated Farmers tackles policy challenges to farming, DairyNZ looks to improve on-farm productivity while the processors drive value add through product and brand development.
“That’s why Dairy, despite the downturn in commodity prices, has an extremely bright future ahead.
“We don’t have to produce 30 billion litres of milk just to remain competitive but we need to derive maximum value from what is produced. This strategy is a big step in that direction,” Mr Leferink concluded.