Feds report membership boost
Farmer lobby Federated Farmers is reporting a growth in membership, for the first time in decades.
The dairy sector has launched its new strategy ‘Dairy Tomorrow’, a joint sector-led initiative involving DairyNZ, Federated Farmers, DCANZ, and Dairy Women’s Network.
The new strategic vision for the dairy sector will lead to a longer term conversation about what New Zealand’s future farm and food systems could look like, says DairyNZ Chief Executive Tim Mackle.
“We are proud of our achievements over the last decade,” says Dr Mackle. “It’s set us up to address the challenges and opportunities we now face as a result of the growth we’ve experienced over recent years.”
“Our shared vision is to improve lives with every drop of New Zealand milk, whether those are the lives of our dairy people, our communities or our consumers.
“We believe sustainable dairy farming has a critical role to play in New Zealand's future prosperity and wellbeing- a future with a focus on farming within environmental limits while maintaining our profitability and success on the global market.”
The ‘Dairy Tomorrow’ strategy has six commitments and 22 corresponding goals. Mackle says some goals have firm time frames in place while others are more aspirational.
“We want to begin straight away collaborating on strategies and actions toward achieving swimmable waterways and finding new opportunities to reduce or offset our greenhouse gas emissions. These actions will be ongoing priorities,” says Mackle.
"We're trying to get to the promised land but we're still in a bit of a swamp at the moment."
The profitability of dairy farmers is likely to increase in the coming year, accordign to the latest report by the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) on the outlook for the primary sector.
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