New board member: Neil and Simone Joliffe pictured with two Holsteins bred by their Wagga stud. Simone has been elected to the Dairy Australia board.
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Wagga Wagga dairy farmer Simone Joliffe was elected to the board of Dairy Australia at its recent annual general meeting.
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Current Dairy Australia board member and chairman James Mann was re-elected.
Ms Joliffe has held positions with the Australian Dairy Farmers and Dairy NSW boards and the NSW Primary Industry Minister’s Advisory Council.
She has been involved in Holstein Australia committees and a variety of community organisations, and is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
Russell Abotomey was elected as a Dairy Australia director with dairy supply chain and product promotion skills.
Chairman re-elected: Former Numurkah farmer James Mann, now farming in Mt Gambier, is the Dairy Australia chair.
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Geoff Adams
Directors Graeme Nicoll and David Lord retired from the board.
Mr Mann addressed the online meeting from the DairySA office at Mt Gambier in South Australia, and congratulated the new directors on their appointments.
Members voted on a number of special resolutions to modify Dairy Australia’s constitution.
These resolutions are designed to enable increased attendance at future meetings, including allowing future meetings to be conducted virtually and permitting direct voting so that members can participate in decision-making at general meetings.
Other changes relate to enabling Dairy Australia to provide electronic notices to members, simplifying majority voting for candidate elections, and the ability for the board to appoint a returning officer to oversee elections.
Mr Mann, who was re-elected as chair at a board meeting following the AGM, addressed members in a speech focused on the future of the dairy industry, including the opportunity for dairy farmers to make additional income from non-production activities such as carbon farming.
“Dairy Australia’s role in this is to work out the opportunities and systems to support it.”
Mr Mann also spoke about the positivity within the industry at present.
“Commodity prices and seasons have aligned to provide a genuine increase in farm profitability across the country and a sense of optimism,” he said.
“It’s a great time to be a farmer. But it’s a particularly great time to be a dairy farmer.”
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