TECHNICAL ISSUES PROGRAM WHAT WE SAID WE’D DO WHY WE DID IT WHAT DID WE ACHIEVE? Sustainable Dairy Industry Production Systems Demonstrate good agricultural and manufacturing practice to consumers in order to secure and enhance the industry’s access to resources and its ability to continue to farm Maintain and enhance the dairy industry's credibility in NRM, animal health and welfare and food safety Animal health Dairy BJD (Bovine Johnes Disease) Herd Assurance Score agreed and information on how to determine your score sent to all dairy farmers – all dairy farmers have information on how to assess the BJD risk of their herds DVD produced for dairy farmers, veterinarians and company field service officers explaining how to assess and manage the BJD risks on dairy farms Information/training sessions run for dairy company field service officers to help them explain the 3-step calf hygiene program that helps reduce the risk of BJD on dairy farms Animal welfare Helped to achieve Australian Government agreement to allow industry to contribute to government positions on OIE matters – the Government now actively seeks industry input Provided input to the Australian Government’s submission on draft international OIE standards for animal welfare and biosecurity – promoting alignment with national dairy industry principles of outcomes focused, nonprescriptive standards Provided animal welfare information kits to dairy farmers, government and animal welfare groups – the dairy industry is more informed of animal welfare outcomes from sound animal production, and governments and animal welfare groups are informed of continued improvements in the dairy industry NRM Contributed technical support to help industry agree on a national NRM strategy for the dairy industry; contributing ongoing support to implement the strategy GM issues Provided technical support to underpin the dairy industry’s (ADIC) development of a draft GM policy position and its consultation with all industry sectors prior to finalising the policy PROGRAM WHAT WE SAID WE’D DO WHY WE DID IT WHAT DID WE ACHIEVE? Secure Market Access Achieve minimum but effective regulations that facilitate rather than hinder trade and do not add unnecessary costs for little benefit Protect the dairy industry's domestic and export markets Helped to have Stage 1 of the Dairy Primary Production and Processing (Dairy PPP) Standard completed, enabling a national dairy food safety system to be implemented Actively encouraged AQIS’ adoption of the Dairy PPP Standard into the export orders, harmonising domestic and export regulatory requirements and therefore reducing unnecessary duplication Participating in Stage 2 of the Dairy PPP Standard process (raw milk products) to ensure the Australian dairy industry’s food safety reputation is not compromised Produced DVDs demonstrating the Australian dairy industry’s food safety, NRM and animal welfare credentials to support market access – used in discussions with the EU during audits of the Australian dairy food safety system Australian Milk Residue Analysis (AMRA) program reviewed and monitoring revised to enable industry to demonstrate the ongoing integrity of the food safety system, given current drought and operating conditions Provided submissions to a number of regulatory reviews e.g. VCEC, Bethwaite, Control of Use Regulations Industry Issues Management Maintain an industry risk management framework Maintain dairy industry’s credibility in issues management Apply an Issues Management Framework to manage issues as they arise Continued enhancement of a co-ordinated issues management framework: • Held industry exercises (internal and external to Dairy Australia) to rehearse roles and responsibilities of all key stakeholders in Critical Incident Management Recovery • Revised Critical Issues Management and Recovery (CMR) Plan to reflect feedback from the exercises • Revised the Issues Reference Manual to update current material and add new Issue Notes • Reviewed and upgraded the Issues Management Extranet Helped prepare industry to deal with issues as they arose by issuing Industry Briefings and Issue Alerts on a number of issues Contributed to the national strategies for dealing with BSE, FMD and pandemic avian flu outbreaks
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