UDV president Paul Mumford welcomes call for unity in dairy industry

Fonterra Australia managing director Rene Dedoncker has urged processors to get behind the Australian Dairy Plan.

"The thing I have advocated since day one, is that any one processor, on their own, is not going to make a difference," Mr Dedoncker said.

"It needs to be industry-wide, and it needs to be from the farm gate, right through the whole value chain.

"What I love about the Dairy Plan is there is a commitment around the possibility that we can do something."

He said the plan would give the industry a path forward.

"But the execution of it is on us, it's not going to be done for us," he said.

The industry needed to be ready to counter what he said were "naysayers".

"Who is going to stand up, when someone says 'ah yeah, we've been here before, it can't possibly work'?" he said.

Mr Dedoncker acknowledged the first months of execution of the plan would be difficult.

"We are going to have to make commitments we can deliver," he said.

A Dairy Australia spokeswoman said those at the Dairy Plan meetings identified a need for industry bodies to do things differently.

The clear aim was to have a stronger, more united voice and the need to consider structures that made advocacy more effective, the spokeswoman said.

Mr Mumford agreed the industry needed a strong, united voice.

"There is complete consensus across the nation that people want fundamental change," he said.

"It's clear advocacy, nationally and at a state level, is under-resourced for the job at hand.

"There have been numerous reports on advocacy here in Victoria, and nationally, over the last 10 years, without any substantial outcome."

Mr Mumford called for assurances the Gardiner Foundation would continue to benefit only the Victorian industry and dairy communities.

"We need to be mindful of how state and regionally based issues are addressed, in a national framework," he said.

"I am concerned as to how those regionally-based issues, and I think of the northern irrigation district, can function, operate, and succeed in a national platform.

"There must be some mechanism in the system that will allow that to happen."

This story first appeared on Stock & Land

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