SA's 2.5 billion-litre-a-year milk industry is looking to technology to re-invent itself.
Through a new online training platform, being created by the Milk Producers Organisation (MPO) of SA, farmers will be offered the opportunity to get better prices for their produce.
According to MPO spokesman Etienne Terre'Blanche, the tool was not necessarily created to combat price-fixing in the industry, but will have that effect nonetheless.
"In the past, the price of milk was determined by the buyer with little to no room for negotiation," he explains. "With this system, the producer can sell their milk at the best possible price and can also see what buyers are paying other producers for their milk."
The trading site will be run in-house by the MPO and is still under construction. Once completed, it will allow milk producers and bulk buyers to negotiate more favourable "farm-gate" prices - ie the buyer still has to factor in transport costs after buying the milk.
Terre'Blanche says the MPO does expect some resistance to the tool initially - "unfortunately it is in people's nature to resist change" - but it should benefit producers.
It is hoped that 75% of the country's bulk milk sales can be moved to the online platform in the next couple of years.
The MPO estimates about two-thirds of SA's milk producers have access to computers and the Internet, while more than 90% of buyers are believed to be technologically empowered.
"Producers have realised a computer and the Internet are a good management tool, and for years most of the country's dairies have been linked to computer systems for record purposes," says Terre'Blanche.
"In this day and age, it is difficult to manage any business without the Internet."
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