Achievements

The Australian Dairy Plan partners have provided the platform for industry collaboration to solve a multitude of logistical issues around floods and emergency animal disease management, to ensure Australian dairy farmers and processors have had optimal support from their leadership to weather this storm.

Maintaining an excellent line of communication with government and all connected service providers has enabled the Australian dairy industry to continue to supply dairy products to its customers through remarkably challenging circumstances, both physically and financially. 

This work has coincided with the 10-year anniversary of the launch of Australian Dairy Sustainability Framework – a nation-leading collaboration that has set high targets for improved sustainability across a range of metrics. Initiatives such as this play a pivotal role in ensuring industry has the capability to withstand the current suite of economic x environmental challenges. 

Through the Australian Dairy Plan, the partners collaborate by advocating for and recruiting into a range of industry leadership programs that will ultimately strengthen the leadership capacity of our next generation. 

The industry proudly identifies and supports participation in The Australian Rural Leadership Program, the UDV study tour, various regional leadership programs and two mentoring programs - one in collaboration with AgVic and the other in partnership with the Australian Rural Leadership Foundation (ARLF). 

Other professional development programs include the Dairy Farm Ambassador program – an initiative that equips dairy farmers to help champion their industry to the general public via a range of media channels and is preparing to scale up over the next period.

The commissioning of an economic analysis of the drivers behind Australian dairy farm performance with respect to productivity, has been a pivotal piece of work under the Dairy Plan.  Considering both recent and long-term trends and using sophisticated modelling techniques, the findings provide insight into strategies that will optimise dairy productivity. 
The findings are now available for farmers and industry members to utilise and they will most certainly influence future research, development and extension investment. 

This came on the back of the Deloitte report into the economic and broader contribution of the Australian dairy processing industry, which provided vital information and help guided policy decisions. 

Off the back of new research into the benefits of dairy in the diets of the elderly, the Dairy Plan has delivered a campaign designed to drive awareness of the research outcomes and inspire aged-care reform. 

The research demonstrated how adequate dairy intake reduced the risk of fractures and falls in elderly people - providing compelling evidence that provision of dairy foods is a safe, low cost, palatable, widely available approach to reduce the burden of fractures and falls in the community.

It showed that increasing serves of dairy - milk, cheese, yoghurt, and skim milk powder - from an average of 2 to 3.5 serves resulted in a 33% reduction in all fractures, a 46% reduction in hip fractures, 11% reduction in falls, and improved calcium and protein intakes.

The campaign used these findings to inspire behaviour change in elderly Australians, and to encourage GPs and dietitians to recommend increased dairy consumption in their older adult patients. This research will continue to be leveraged to inspire policy reform in the aged care setting.

The campaign to Buy, Support, Enjoy Aussie Dairy was launched on back of the Dairy Matters communication platform in the second half of 2021. It focused on dairy’s role in maintaining healthy bones and muscles and was supported with a national media buy to coincide with the Olympics and sporting finals. This was followed by further advertising in early 2022, showcasing dairy’s role in everyday moments. 

The campaign has been positively received with 41% of adults recalling it, 86% of those feeling more supportive of the industry, 81% feeling more supportive of dairy products and 63% consuming more dairy as a result of seeing the campaign. 

To increase marketing reach and drive a whole of supply chain approach, processors Fonterra, Saputo, Lactalis and Brownes Dairy have integrated marketing campaigns that combine their product branding with the Dairy Matters branding. 

For further information on marketing campaigns, please visit dairymatters.com.au.

The Dairy Plan partners have advocated and aided our industry’s access to skilled labour – a key challenge during COVID-19 border restrictions - and have a specific project underway to understand the workforce needs and challenges post-farmgate and recommended solutions. 

This two-year program of work which includes a national workforce attraction marketing campaign, aims to attract jobseekers into roles on farm and provide support for farmers to successfully hire and manage staff. 

Featuring dairy ambassador, Jonathan Brown and seven dairy farmers, the campaign showcases why working in dairy matters and highlights factors that have shown to motivate people to consider a job in dairy. It encourages jobseekers to visit Dairy Jobs Matter for more information and where to go to find job opportunities in their region.

The campaign launched regionally in September 2022 across TV, radio, social media, digital, local newspapers, with a follower series planned in early 2023. 

Meanwhile, post farm-gate an analysis has been completed to understand the type and breadth of employment issues so to help inform future changes. This was fed into the Federal Government’s Jobs and Skills Summit, which included a dairy representative on the working group. 

The Our Farm, Our Plan (OFOP) program has been a key plank of the Dairy Plan execution. Designed in collaboration with DairyNZ, this program equips farmers and their advisers to clarify their business and personal goals, prioritise where they’ll put their efforts, decide actions, consider risks and document their plan. 

Since the launch of the Dairy Plan, the OFOP program has seen strong participation nationally, including more than 400 dairy farmers in the FY22. Feedback from participants over this period has averaged 9.2/10 in terms of value to them and their business.  Participating farmers have been supported one on one, to have documented long-term plans and have consistently provided very positive feedback about the content, delivery and value to them. 

An additional $1.7 million of project partner funding (including from State and Federal Government) has been secured to leverage the investment of levy funds and drive further expansion and development. This partner funding allowed the recruitment of additional team members to bolster delivery capacity.  

For more information about Our Farm, Our Plan, the Farm Fitness Checklist and to register your interest, visit dairyaustralia.com.au/ofop.