Since 2008 the milk levy has been 3.6c/kg and the DairyNZ board has decided to maintain that for the 2020-21 season.
Mackle was asked if a case could be made for increasing the levy, given the lack of growth in milk production, good farmgate milk prices and the increasing need for industry-good spending.
Several farmers called out the Biosecurity Response Levy of 2.9c implemented in 2019 was an effective increase.
An increase was not proposed and the levy vote was about the mandate for DairyNZ and a period of collective engagement, he said.
Mackle said that in more than 30 meetings with dairy farmers the areas of spending by DairyNZ were ranked in importance to farmers and priority for spending.
The two ranked most highly were farm systems research and development and the public perception of dairying.
Farmers also ranked policy advocacy very highly in the wake of the freshwater and zero-carbon legislative proposals.
DairyNZ will go into the voting period with a pitch to farmers based on a better future for the industry through science solutions and supporting better local farming.
NZ dairying has a very bright future, grounded in pure naturalness, Mackle said.
Consumers will continue to want real dairy foods even when synthetics are widely available.
The alternatives will be needed in future, from a humanitarian point of view, along with food security and the prevention of civil unrest.
But the NZ industry must continue to address and improve on some of the gnarly issues around animal care and the environmental impacts of dairying, which the synthetics claim they avoid.
The environmental claims are debatable, though, when it is known soy milk has twice the carbon footprint of dairy milk.
The future will be underpinned by technological knowhow, he said.
It is not either/or – pure and wholesome and low-tech versus high-tech and less natural.
“We have got to be both – protecting that image of pure and natural while underpinning it with technological advances at a time of growing world population.”
Mackle said one futurist predicts growth in demand for animal-derived protein of 70% by 2050.
Levy voting packs will be sent out in mid April.
