10 March 2002 Scholars invited to pick up challenge of maintaining dairy industry's edge

New Zealand must hang on to the advantage it has developed in dairy production, said Fonterra Chairman John Roadley when presenting Dexcel's NZ Dairy Industry Undergraduate Scholarships at Lincoln University on Friday 22 March.

"New Zealand can turn pasture into product more efficiently than any other country... and the dairy industry generates one dollar in every five that New Zealand earns off-shore," he said.

"But our competitors are now catching up and we need to continue to stay ahead of them.

"We have to maintain our production efficiency edge. We have to continue our leadership role in process and product development, and our marketing has to be ahead of our competitors.

"And of special importance, we have to be the first to unlock the hidden potential of milk. Our scientists have to be the first to identify and commercialise its special health and wellness-promoting components. Milk is nature's nutrition. The only substance in nature produced solely for nutrition."

In the past New Zealand had stayed ahead by hard work and old fashioned Kiwi ingenuity, he said, and while both remained important it was "smart work" that counted now.

Mr Roadley congratulated the scholars on their awards. He said they had worked hard, but more importantly they had worked smart.

He said the scholarships were a vital part of encouraging New Zealand's best and brightest to be part of building New Zealand's dairy industry for the future.