Agriculture industry veteran Stephen Sheridan has been appointed Australian Dairy Farmers new chief executive officer.
Mr Sheridan said he was keen to get his teeth into the challenges facing the dairy industry, including the current flooding disaster besetting many farms in eastern states.
He nominated biosecurity risks such as foot-and-mouth disease and lumpy skin disease, the increasing costs of production and the challenge of reducing the industry's carbon footprint as other key issues.
He replaces David Inall, who last month started as CEO of Master Grocers Australia.
Mr Sheridan said although the industry had a positive outlook with higher prices, input costs from labour to grain and fertiliser were squeezing margins.
"That's now obviously being exacerbated by energy shocks ... that's becoming certainly an immediate term issue," he said.
"You throw into that interest rates, on top of all those input costs going up, and that's putting the profitability and sustainability of the industry at risk."
Dairy was an energy-intensive industry, so was particularly hard hit.
He said although foot-and-mouth disease and lumpy skin disease were no longer front page news in the metropolitan media, the diseases still right on Australia's doorstep and remained a significant risk.
The industry needed to remain conscious of the threat and work with government to ensure there were appropriate preventions in place.
"Because in my mind, preventions and keeping it out of the country are more important than the cure," he said.
"So if you can get effective vaccinations and things into Indonesia and have good biosecurity protocols around ports and the food stuffs and things like that coming into the country, I think that's probably the critical point."
Mr Sheridan is also keen to have an attempt at sorting out more sustainable funding for ADF.
He pointed out that agricultural research and development organisations were well resourced through compulsory levies but advocacy organisations, funded through voluntary levies from declining numbers of farmers, were running on a shoestring.
"So I think there's opportunity there, as we've seen in other sectors in agriculture, to try and get those bodies working together, if we can simply sort out the structure of the industry," he said.
He acknowledged that although the dairy industry had not been able to secure a restructure in its latest attempt through the Dairy Plan, there might be other options available.
"I'll be certainly reaching out to all of the industry, and whether it be the farmer members and the other organisations' members, and other entities, to try and see what alternatives there are," he said.
"(To see) if there are any interim steps we can take, rather than going fully for that end goal that they were striving to achieve."
Mr Sheridan brings extensive experience across more than 30 years to the role.
He is a former CEO of the Victorian Farmers Federation, a current director of Rural Financial Counselling Service Victoria West and a former manager with the Australian Wheat Board.
He said his cross-sectoral and commercial agribusiness experience would be an asset in his new role.
READ MORE: VFF chief executive Steve Sheridan has quit
He also brought expertise and breadth and depth of corporate and not-for-profit experience to the role.
Mr Sheridan grew up on a mixed cropping, livestock and irrigation property near Dubbo, NSW, before completing a Bachelor of Agricultural Economics at the University of New England.
"Australia is fortunate to have such a fantastic, clean, green, healthy and abundant supply of essential dairy foods," he said.
"The outlook for the dairy industry appears positive both domestically and internationally.
"My goal is that ADF is an effective advocacy organisation, focused on the sustainability of Australian dairy farmers supplying the dairy products we know and love."
Mr Sheridan has hit the ground running with November one of the busiest months for dairy industry organisations.
He will be lining up for an ADF policy council meeting on Friday and hopes to get out and meet state dairy farming organisation representatives and as many farmers as possible before ADF's annual general meeting later in the month.
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Carlene Dowie
Carlene Dowie is the editor of the Australian Dairyfarmer magazine and has more than 30 years' experience as a rural journalist.
Carlene Dowie is the editor of the Australian Dairyfarmer magazine and has more than 30 years' experience as a rural journalist.
