David Nation took over from Ian Halliday — who spent nine years in the role — at the end of last month.
Dr Nation had previously held lead roles at the DairyCRC, which then became DairyBio, and is well known in the industry for his work with technology and communicating with farmers.
Dr Nation said his response to the board’s question was to focus on what Australian dairy does well. While focusing on the positives, he did not shy away from what he said were challenges, in the past two years especially, and he also spent a lot of time outlining how the research development and extension organisation would tackle the national feed shortage this season.
Among the positives, Dr Nation emphasised the lower price of land and viable markets both internationally and domestically as well the “secure” agreement between the industry and government for funding of Dairy Australia. He said farmers around the world would love to have a Dairy Australia, where farmer levy money was matched by government.
“In most countries dairy farmers might put their own money together and then have to always go cap in hand to government for this and that,” he said. “To have this secure environment … is absolutely desired by most other dairy industries all around the world.”
With global dairy experience, Dr Nation hopes to bring perspective to Australian dairy.
“I’ve lived and worked in dairy industry for more than 20 years and I’m enormously proud of what the dairy industry collectively has achieved and I represent that now as managing director of (Dairy Australia),” he said.
“And one of my greatest frustrations as someone who is passionate about the dairy industry and loves to watch it succeed is that the industry is often its own worst enemy at losing perspective.”
He said this perspective became lost because “there’s so much happening on a dairy farm every day and it’s a tiring job”.
He also pointed the finger at $1 a litre house brand milk which he said was “driving negative sentiment”.
“The last two years have been hard,” he said.
“I don’t have any problem with anyone who is dairy farming saying it has been a hard two years and it is really hard for me to keep my perspective about what is positive about the dairy industry, that’s entirely reasonable. “
Australian consumers moved away from buying $1 a litre milk during the “dairy crisis” two years ago, but there has been a slow move back towards the cheap milk.
Dr Nation said those sales trends were “hard to sustain” but “when the general population thought dairy was struggling it wanted to do something to help”.
He said this house-brand milk delivered a “personal hurt” to dairy farmers.
“Do retailers value our product highly enough and through the way they price the product, make farmers feel good about all the effort to produce a litre of milk? Clearly not when they sell milk for a $1 a litre,” he said.
“You can argue whether there is an economic hurt to this, there is a personal hurt to dairy farmers. Dairy farmers have every reason to say “I don’t think that is fair”.
“It’s things like that which cause negative sentiment in the dairy industry, but again my challenge is to say despite how the supermarkets have priced their milk, which is actually out of your control and my control, if you are travelling the world with round-the-world ticket and your job was to become a dairy farmer somewhere, I still reckon it is a pretty smart bet to become an Australian dairy farmer.”
A $10 per cow per year improvement to more than $20/cow return for genetic progress is something Dr Nation refers to as a strength of the industry — a “success story”. New pasture varieties where described as “game changers”.
With escalating grain, fodder and irrigation water prices, Dr Nation said helping farmers manage through the coming season was a Dairy Australia priority. He recommended farmers look to their local regional development program for advice.
“For the first instance our recommendation is for farmers to talk about it in discussion groups,” he said. “We’ve seen in past years, there’s danger in overreacting and culling stock early and farmers regretting it.”
Dairy Australia had a “conservative” estimate of 1 per cent milk volume increase for this coming year, but Dr Nation said it is too early to determine what the coming season would bring.
Farm business management programs such as Taking Stock will be rolled out in NSW and East Gippsland as dry conditions bite. Queensland started with this program earlier.
The dairy industry narrative has concentrated on profit rather than productivity in the past few years. This approach has helped farmers tackle tough seasonal conditions and volatile markets, Dr Nation said. But he wants to move away from talk about financial literacy and rather discuss business plans.
“I think most people if you ask them have a plan, of course, how much is in their head and how much is in a form that we can understand and work out how to better assist are two different things,” he said.
“I’d never accuse any dairy farmer of not having a plan. The question I have of dairy farmers is what you have with your plan. Is it something that you can ask anyone else to help you, even within your own family an RDP or anyone else? That is the ultimate question really.”
By: SIMONE SMITH
Source: The Weekly Times
Link: https://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/agribusiness/dairy/hard-times-but-the-futures-rosy-says-new-dairy-australia-chief/news-story/1f679ab4053bfd9ced13f4d5b0154fa8