LIC has told the Stock Exchange Guy has agreed LIC can remove the requirement to retain the Dairy Core Database and amend provisions on who can hold shares, maximum voting rights, and postal voting.
The updated constitution has been filed with the Companies Office.
The changes allow the Dairy Core Database to be transferred to Dairy New Zealand later this year.
LIC shareholders voted in 2012 in favour of the restrictions being removed.
DairyNZ chief executive Dr Tim Mackle said the Dairy Core Database would become part of the Dairy Industry Good Animal Database (DIGAD).
“DIGAD is a new database that will hold the New Zealand Core Database, all the data required for animal breeding evaluation purposes, and some additional data for industry research.
“This includes animal performance data from customers of herd recording companies such as LIC and CRV Ambreed, and data collected by breed societies,” Mackle said.
“We have been working closely with LIC for over a year to develop systems to transfer data from their systems and to ensure a smooth transition.
“Our aim has been to enhance the national genetic evaluation system for farmers so we can identify the best sires and cows.
“NZ dairy farmers have traditionally made good use of nationally collated data for applications such as animal improvement and financial benchmarking.
“These have provided a competitive advantage for us. For example, the genetic improvement of dairy cattle is estimated to have contributed $310 million each year to the national dairy industry.
“Industry organisations must have access to collated data so we can evaluate things like breeding worth for dairy cattle and forage value index for ryegrass.”
Mackle said DairyNZ was bringing in specialised staff to develop and support the database’s development and operation.
“We’ll have new systems and processes to access data for industry research and support the routine operation and development of animal evaluation.”
Expert companies, as well as LIC, assisting DairyNZ included Datacom, an information technology company helping to build the new database.
Datacom was one of Australasia’s largest independent information technology providers and one of NZ’s largest software development companies.
Insomnia Security was ensuring the security of the database. It was a NZ company dedicated to providing highly specialised information security consultancy services. It was tasked with providing an independent security review to confirm policies and configurations were robust across the network and systems.
Abacus Bio is an agribusiness consultancy business specialising in quantitative genetics applications. It had been developing economic models to support national breeding objectives in NZ and Australia.
