Australian Dairy Farmers (ADF) is the national policy and advocacy body working to improve the profitability and sustainability of dairy farming in Australia. Representing Australia’s six dairying states, ADF state membership is comprised of representatives from Tasmania, Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia. These state bodies are known as State Dairy Farmer Organisation (SDFO) members, whom ADF provides support and representation to on a national level.
Alongside the dairy processor representative body, the Australian Dairy Products Federation (ADPF), both organisations form the Australian Dairy Industry Council (ADIC). This partnership is unique to Australian agriculture in that it takes a unified, whole of industry approach to policy and advocacy. Through the ADIC, dairy farmers and processors work together to create a more prosperous and sustainable future by advocating to government, industry and the community.
Australian Dairy Farmers (ADF) is funded through the six State Dairy Farmer Organisation (SDFO) members of ADF.
As part of each dairying state’s national representation, its State Dairy Farmer Organisation (SDFO) provides funding on an annual basis to support ADF’s provision and delivery of national policy and advocacy. The amount of funding provided by each State Member is dependent on its size.
ADF’s State member bodies include:
Australian Dairy Farmers (ADF) utilises a consultative policy development process to ensure that the national policies we develop, endorse and implement meet the best interests of dairy farmers and our State Members.
Whilst policy development is not a “one size fits all” approach – often involving numerous additional cross-referencing processes – ADF carries out policy development, in its simplest form, through the following process illustrated below.
If the policy is deemed to be relevant to both dairy farmers and dairy processors, it will then be passed to the Australian Dairy Industry Council (ADIC) Board for further development. It is therefore necessary that an Australian Dairy Industry Council (ADIC) policy is an existing ADF policy, before it can be endorsed by the whole value chain.
Similar to the policy development process, policy advocacy does not take a “cookie-cutter” approach and most often requires a unique implementation plan for each policy.
There are three broad target audiences for our policy and advocacy: government, industry and the community. Whilst some policies are developed for industry advocacy only, others may also target government and the broader dairy community.
Regardless of which target audience we are addressing, we feel it is important to remember that our advocacy always considers the overarching impact it may have on our industry’s triple bottom line – the social, environmental and financial factors influenced by our decision-making.
Illustrated below are examples of the types of institutions, organisations and people we target to help make a positive change to the industry.
