A vision for a profitable dairy industry for participants and the community, which produces high quality, safe products from environmentally healthy and sustainable production systems, was developed through mutual consent between industry and resource management stakeholders.

The dairy industry has recognised the growing need to ensure sustainability improves in response to growing public interest in what farmers do with water, nutrients, soil and effluent. Sustaining Our Natural Resources is an initiative specifically designed to address the issue of "Dairying for Tomorrow". The Murray Dairy regional Action Plan is a component of this project developed by the Australia Dairy Industry, Dairy Research and Development Corporation, Land & Water Resource Audit, Australian Dairy Farmers Federation and Australian Dairy Products Federation.

The dairy industry in South Australia is expected to experience continuing strong growth in the next decade. It is anticipated that milk production will increase from 700 million litres in 2000 to over 1 billion litres in 2010. Increased productivity gains will be achieved through increased stocking rates, more strategic use of fertilisers, increasing use of supplementary feeds and a more effective use of available water.

Dairy farmers need to know the consequences of NRM decisions and the economic and environmental opportunities presented in best management practices. The areas of highest priority are water use efficiency and effluent reuse. Improving the efficiency of resource use in these areas will increase productivity and reduce environmental impacts. As many enterprises are restructuring reliable information is needed on impact mitigation and opportunities of intensifying production.

The recommendations and associated linkages to existing works found within this document can be broken down into the following categories...

DairyTas has a vision of the Tasmanian Dairy Industry as one "that is productive and profitable, maintains or improves its on-farm resources, and at the same time minimizes all off-farm environmental impacts".

Presenting the Dairy Industry's business plan for the management of it's natural resources.