91% Support for Deer Industry Restructuring

11/5/2001

Results from the Deer Industry Poll on the Proposal for Industry Restructuring were released by the Deer Farmers’ Association and Game Industry Board today.

The results show 91% of those farmers who responded to the poll were in favour of the proposal. Those farmers who were in favour represented 93% of the deer farmed by those voting.

Venison and velvet companies were polled separately on the proposal as well as on voting systems for elections from the processing/exporting sector. 91% of venison companies and 83% of velvet companies voting supported the proposal, representing 99% and 79% of venison and velvet production respectively that voted.

“This is an exceptional level of support for the proposal”, said DFA President John Scurr. “It sends an extremely strong message that the industry supports us moving towards the sort of structure outlined in the Proposal. It also represents industry support for the Proposal’s key objectives - an efficient and truly representative and unified industry organisation”.

1,029 farmers who farm a total of 742,109 deer responded to the poll. This represents a turnout of about 25% of the country’s approximately 4,200 deer farmers accounting for 33% of the total number of deer farmed.

GIB Chairman Clive Jermy believes this is an extremely credible poll. “This is a pretty typical level of turnout for farmer polls and although a higher response is always hoped for, the percentage of those in favour of change is extremely encouraging and very credible. There is a profoundly strong signal here. All deer farmers and companies were represented in developing the proposal, all received information about the proposal and were invited to shed meetings to discuss it” said Mr Jermy. “All deer farmers and companies had the opportunity to vote and were reminded twice during the 3 week polling period to have their say. It was a thorough and robust consultative process and the result is a very clear and credible indication of industry support for the proposal” he said.

Whether and how the poll results will be implemented will be discussed at DFA and GIB Meetings in late January. “There is still a lot of work to do and a lot of detail to be discussed”, said Mr Scurr, “not least of which is the analysis of the comments provided with the poll documents. These will help to shape how the proposal might go forward. Full implementation of the Proposal would also require some Constitutional changes to be ratified at our AGM in May”.