When Elevate Dairy set out to find innovations that could make a real difference on Victorian dairy farms, the first step wasn’t searching for technology, it was listening to farmers.
Elevate Dairy debuted at the 2026 Australian Dairy Conference in Melbourne, where a whiteboard listing 45 potential on-farm challenges invited farmers to mark their top three. What followed were grounded, practical conversations around feed costs, labour shortages, energy reliability and fragmented data systems featured heavily.
Those conversations fed directly into the work of Elevate Dairy’s Industry Advisory Committee (IAC), eight individuals including seven active dairy farmers, with expertise spanning veterinary science, agribusiness, corporate finance and industry leadership. Drawing on the ADC and their own deep industry experience, the IAC identified the priority challenges Elevate Dairy would focus on.
Five priorities emerged:
- Productivity: Pasture management, soil health, feed efficiency and water use
- Automation and data integration: Reducing labour pressure and supporting faster, smarter decision-making on farm
- Animal health: Disease detection and treatment, with direct impact on herd performance and profitability
- Farm management: Staff systems, training and capability
- High input costs: Energy, feed, fertiliser and fuel
With the challenges defined, Elevate Dairy’s next step is clear: finding the innovations from around the world that can meet them.
