The Australian dairy industry has released a traceability guideline to aid the introduction of technology to track milk and dairy products and allow for real time payments.
The guideline sets out common terms and codes for products in various part of the supply chain.
It will allow everyone in the sector to use the same approach to track products.
The Australian Dairy Traceability Guideline has been developed as part of Australian Dairy Farmers Blockchain and Traceability Framework, which was funded through an Australian government grant.
It was officially released on Wednesday by Senator Susan McDonald during the eighth meeting of the National GS1 Traceability Advisory Group.
ADF president Terry Richardson said improving the transparency of information flow through the supply chain was critical to address power imbalances.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission inquiry and Senate dairy inquiries had identified power imbalances between farmers and processors as key issues for the industry.
"Trust is the foundation on which supply chain participants - from farm to shopping basket - rely," Mr Richardson said.
"Traceability underpins trust.
"It enables us to provide assurances about what we produce, process and sell."
The traceability standards in the guideline provide a common approach for the Australian dairy industry to identify and track product as it moves through the supply chain, capturing and sharing information of relevance to producers, transporters, manufacturers, retailers, exporters and government.
"Openly sharing information also helps industry to protect our clean, green and safe food image, and, importantly, reduce our costs to compete more aggressively in local and global markets," Mr Richardson said.
"Without open, transparent and secure information systems in our value chain, Australia's dairy farmers, processors and exporters will be competing on world markets with one arm behind their back."
Mr Richardson said the common language for traceability in the guideline would improve communication across industry.
"It puts everyone on the same page and in doing so it increases efficiency across the value chain," he said.
"It will help everyone in the sector implement traceability and improve safety and market access."
The traceability guideline has been developed based on specialist technical advice from GS1 Australia, as well as a series of industry supply chain workshops and validation with a global food company.
GS1 Australia chief executive officer Maria Palazzolo thanked the Australian government for supporting the development of this technology for Australian agricultural supply chains.
"This is a great example of federal government alignment as these guidelines complement the National Freight Data Hub led by the Department of Infrastructure, given both initiatives are based on the same underlying global data standards for supply chains," she said.
"The guidelines also support federal government initiatives to simplify trade systems via export regulatory reform and a more automated exchange of trade documents."
The Australian Dairy Traceability Guideline is available at https://australiandairyfarmers.com.au/blockchain-and-real-time-payment-system/.
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