Dairy Australia will hold an election for a place on its board after 100 member signatures in support were garnered by an Australian who will continue living and working in New Zealand if successful.
Mark Neal, whose family farms in NSW, is a dairy systems specialist with DairyNZ, the equivalent of DA in NZ, and trained as an agricultural economist at the University of Sydney.
He will contest the place allocated for a research and development expert that is currently held by Professor Paul Wood.
Mr Neal said his plan to remain living and working in NZ while sitting on the DA board would be advantageous.
While there was much Australian dairying could learn from NZ dairying, a chuckling Mr Neal said there was less NZ could benefit from the relationship.
"Interestingly, I think NZ has picked up the things that it can learn around InCalf and Countdown," he said.
"I think we could have more useful interchange between geneticists."
Mr Neal said he was "extremely cognisant" of the differences the two countries, citing his family's Taree, NSW, dairy business and his work at Dookie Research Farm.
"Having said that, in Australia each cow produces, I think, 20 to 25 per cent more per cow than NZ," Mr Neal said.
"However, the operating return on assets in Australia is 1pc versus in 4pc in NZ, so if anyone thought we were going to produce our way out of our problems, they should really think about that carefully."