Former Dairy Australia staff say the research and development corporation is throwing good dairy farmer levies after bad, despite reviews showing “very poor returns” on key projects, while the benefits of others cannot be measured.
Dairy Australia’s InternationalMarket Support project costs $1.085m to run this season, plus about $1.5m in staff costs, flying in overseas dairy industry players to be wined and dined at dairy farmers’ expense, while staff travel business-class to Asian conferences, workshops.
One October 2018 external evaluation, seen by The Weekly Times, of the China component of that project found: “there was no information available that enabled a quantification of the effects of the market development” and questioned the investment given Australia signed a free-trade deal with China in 2015.
One former staff member said another project that “showed a very poor return, and recommended (it) not to continue was P110 Advanced Management Technologies, Agtech and Innovation”, which has a large focus on automatic milking systems.
Yet despite this, Dairy Australia’s operational plan showed it had lifted its investment in automatic milking from $475,487 in 2017-18 to $641,634 this season.
The Weekly Times asked for copies of this and other independent reviews, but a Dairy Australia spokeswoman said it was not required to publish external reviews of individual projects.
Other poor performers identified by former staff include Dairy Australia’s Maintaining Public Trust and its Dairy Industry’s Sustainability projects.
The projects form part of Dairy Australia’s $6.26 million Trusted Dairy Industry Strategic Program, which included $4.065m to fund its industry and community marketing campaigns in 2018-19.
DA has cut funding to its troubled Legendairy marketing campaign that sucked up $552,628 in 2017-18, and instead invested $2.5m in its Maintaining Public Trust Project.
DA’s annual operating plan stated: “The general public is slowly losing trust and confidence in the dairy industry” and the $2.5 million would “support the industry’s license to operate through communication and promotion of the product and industry”.
The Weekly Times also asked why Dairy Australia had accumulated reserves of $29.3 million, but the farmer levy-funded research and development corporation failed to respond before deadline.
Dairy Australia’s marketing investments come as it joins the Australian Dairy Farmers lobby group in rolling out consultation on developing an Australian Dairy Plan, which was launched six months ago.
The cost of the rollout to farmers has not been revealed, nor has the process by which former Victorian Premier John Brumby was appointed as the independent chair of the plan last week.
NSW Dairy Connect chairman Graham Forbes said the plan should have been concluded well before now, so its findings could be taken to candidates during the current Federal Election campaign.
“Who’s been calling the shots on this and appointed John Brumby,” Mr Forbes said.
“We weren’t engaged on this, nor were other groups. It’s all a bit Victoria-centric.”