Following consultation, the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) is making changes to the dairy herd improvement industry.
MPI Director of Sector Policy, Jarred Mair, says the changes involve removing legislative requirements on the Livestock Improvement Corporation (LIC) and undertaking further work that may lead to different requirements on the industry in the future.
“The consultation review process found that the regulations imposed undue cost on LIC and limits its ability to implement its global growth strategy,” he says.
This means the law will no longer require LIC to:
- provide herd testing nationwide at uniform prices within regions;
- obtain the Minister’s consent to amend or revoke provisions of its constitution regarding shareholding and voting; and
- obtain the Minister’s written consent prior to applying to demutualise.
The requirement for LIC to offer nationwide delivery of herd testing at regionally uniform prices is maintained in its constitution, which ensures that core products and services are made available to all shareholders at fair commercial prices.
Any changes to LIC’s constitution, and demutualisation, requires 75% shareholder support.
“MPI will retain access panel oversight of LIC’s historical copy of the core database, and new core data they collect, for a period of three years after the database and the access panel transfer to DairyNZ. During that time MPI will carry out a review of the access panel.
“As part of the Dairy Industry Restructuring Review next year MPI will be considering the dairy herd improvement industry more broadly. This may result in regulatory requirements being placed on the industry in the future,” says Mr Mair.