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Research and Development Corporation
Dairy Australia

Dairy Australia works towards shaping a profitable and sustainable dairy industry by providing services that benefit and advance dairy farm business and the industry.

About Dairy Australia

Dairy Australia deliver value by enhancing farm business management, supporting employment and people development, driving herd and feed innovation, managing climate and environment, advancing industry sustainability, supporting international dairy markets, promoting Australian dairy, and responding to critical issues and events.

Through strategic investment in research, innovation, and partnerships, the organisation seeks to address national challenges and accelerate the adoption of transformative technologies. Dairy Australia has committed to expanding their horizons through:  

  • Investing with other rural industries and the private sector to address major national challenges facing Australian agriculture,
  • Expanding global partnerships to import international expertise and technology to achieve research and innovation targets,  
  • Increasing the opportunities for co-investment with AgTech entrepreneurs, and
    Exploring new models of agricultural innovation. 

    A key program supporting this initiative is the Dairy Australia Innovation Challenge. This is a current opportunity for innovators, solution providers, startups, scaleups and SMEs to investigate novel technologies that reduce methane production in dairy cattle. 
Bunch of cows standing around looking at the camera.

Funding

Strategic priorities

Dairy Australia invests in services and activities that align with their strategic priorities and annual investment plan. These priorities are outlined in the Dairy Australia Strategic Plan 2025 - 2030.  

  1. Unlocking today’s potential: Strengthening farm business performance by supporting informed decision-making, farm practice change, and people.  
  2. Innovating for future success: Driving research and innovation that delivers productivity benefits via incremental gains and disruptive technology.  
  3. Ensuring a sustainable industry: Uniting the dairy industry to shape and deliver dairy’s commitment to sustainability, strengthen global and local competitiveness, and drive community trust and support. 

 

Current opportunities

Check out Dairy Australia's current opportunities on the growᴬᴳ. platform. 

Dairy Australia: Seeking solution providers for Investigations into feasible methane reduction technologies for dairy
Opportunity

Dairy Australia: Seeking solution providers for Investigations into feasible methane reduction technologies for dairy

Opportunity for

  • Innovators, solution providers and startups/scaleups/SME’s to investigate novel technologies that reduce methane production in dairy cattle.

Opportunity description

Industry challenge:

The Australian dairy industry accounts for 10 per cent of agricultural GHG, or about 2 per cent of total national emissions. For dairy, 57 per cent of on-farm emissions come from methane. Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and water vapour. In Australia 90-95% of dairy industry GHGs are coming from farms, with approximately 5-10% coming from manufacturing.

Dairy Australia modelling indicates there has been a loss of dairy farm business productivity in the order of 0.6-0.9 per cent per year since 2000 as a direct result of climate change. Impacts are being felt through changing pasture growth patterns, reduced rainfall, heat impacts on milk production and an increase in extreme events like fire, flood and drought.

Many companies, governments, and industries have established or are...

Read opportunity
Dairy Australia: Seeking solution providers to identify technology that enhances Employment Value Proposition (EVP) for a career in dairy farming.
Opportunity

Dairy Australia: Seeking solution providers to identify technology that enhances Employment Value Proposition (EVP) for a career in dairy farming.

Opportunity for

  • Innovators, solution providers and startups/scaleups/SME’s who can investigate novel technologies that enhances the experience of a job seeker for the dairy industry.

Opportunity description

Industry challenge:

The Dairy industry employs over 30,000 people on farm nationally and is forth largest industry in the agriculture sector. Whilst there is a healthy level of cooperation between industry participants within the sector on several levels, dairy farmers still compete for people talent in a similar way to other industry.

There is an estimated 20% turnover of staff within the Dairy industry annually and with historically low unemployment nationally and the reduction on international migration until quite recently, attracting people to Dairy remains a challenge.

The supply of quality farm workers is constrained by the lack of available accommodation within reasonable commuting distance of work. Dairy farming involves early morning starts, is a 7 day/week x 52 weeks operation, is sometimes dirty...

Read opportunity

 

Person standing holding a handheld device, facing a cow.

Get in touch

Contact us

For more information about Dairy Australia, click the 'Get in touch' link to reach out.