Tasmania’s dairy farmers were encouraged to look beyond dairy co-ops at the industry’s annual conference.
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Speaking to more than 120 dairy farmers and industry stakeholders at the Tasmanian Dairy Conference on Thursday, United Dairy Farmers of Victoria president Adam Jenkins spoke about an industry that could map its own future.
As well as his corporate role, Mr Jenkins milks 240 cows in Purrumbete, Victoria, and undertook the Nuffield Scholarship program in 2011 to investigate the impact of dairy co-operatives on the market.
“If you look at the major markets around the world, we have major co-ops underpinning them, and in Australia we haven’t done a very good job with our co-ops,” Mr Jenkins said.
It’s about taking control of the things we can control.
- Adam Jenkins
Travelling to the world’s major milk markets for his scholarship, Mr Jenkins wanted to know if a dairy co-op could deliver a competitive milk price and good returns while staying true to its philosophy.
“That was 2011 and I think we’re in a position where you would say no at the moment based in the past couple of years,” he said.
Overseas co-ops were less supply driven and operated differently to those in Australia.
“We were demanding a return from our co-op year in, year out. When you look at the major co-ops overseas they didn’t give you a dividend if they didn’t think the market was strong enough,” Mr Jenkins said.
“They would invest it back in to processing capacity to make sure they had long-term sustainability in their capacity to weather some of the storms.
“That was quite a big lesson in terms of the Australian market… we’ve lost all our major co-ops in Australia because they haven’t been able to manage that transition.”
Mr Jenkins said today’s market was more fragmented than ever, but dairy farmers could bridge the gap by attending events like the conference, getting involved in government policy setting and drawing a line in the sand to move beyond the 2016 dairy crisis.
“It’s about taking control of the things we can control,” he said.
The conference finished with the awards dinner, where the 2018 Tasmanian Dairy Business of the Year was announced.