Milk SA R&D Structure – Milk South Africa Research and Development

The R&D Forum is tasked to:

Propose and evaluate R&D programmes, projects and ideas.
Promote and facilitate co-operation between institutions and disciplines in project applications and approved projects - including human, financial, capital and infrastructural resources.
Advise the Dairy R&D Committee on any other R&D initiative or activity as may be required.

Participation in the Forum is from across the spectrum of the dairy value chain and includes researchers; other specialists; producers from concentrate-roughage, total mixed ration (TMR) and pasture-based systems; and persons from the organized dairy industry.

Related Programmes

Individual programmes have been established for animal welfare, animal health and environmental sustainability. Although these topics have linkage to the various research projects, each of them also deserves special attention and focus by Milk SA due to the demanding and changing nature of legislation, technology, consumer perceptions and requirements, risks, etc.

R&D Fields

Milk SA established expertise reference groups for each of the seven scientific fields. These groups are consulted with in any event where expert knowledge and insight is required; to advise on new project ideas; and to provide input on project submissions and reports.

R&D stakeholders

These are the persons (legal persons and natural persona) with which/whom the R&D Programme interacts in the course of its duties, for various reasons.

The Dairy R&D Committee is tasked to:

Define policies and procedures for dealing with project proposals.
Evaluate project proposals, project ideas and project reports in accordance with the policies and procedures.
Take initiative to identify research needs in liaison with industry stakeholders and to ensure that the needs are properly addressed.
Promote research networks, interaction between researchers and harmonization of intellectual and other resources.
Evaluate research ideas and proposals from researchers who wish to submit research proposals for funding by other funding organizations; and validate qualifying ideas / proposals.
Encourage the application of research findings amongst the industry role-players such as producers of raw milk and manufacturers of dairy products.
Decide on research findings / results and other matters to be communicated and how it should be communicated.
Determine and review the duties and remuneration of the R&D Programme Manager, for recommendation to the Executive Committee of Milk SA.
Determine and review the duties and remuneration of any expert person on the DRDC with a special assignment, for recommendation to the Executive Committee of Milk SA.
Determine the tasks of the R&D Management Committee.
Consider the R&D annual budgets for recommendation to the Executive Committee of Milk SA.

The R&D Management Committee supports the Dairy R&D Committee and attends for example to the finer detail of the project planning, reports, budgets, communication and challenges and advises the Dairy R&D Committee accordingly.

The R&D Programme Manager mainly ensures that the projects are executed in accordance with plan; that the different researchers and other stakeholders liaise and interact with each other where required; that any problems or needs be identified and addressed timeously; and to report to the Board of Directors on the execution of the R&D programme. The R&D Programme Manager also chairs the Dairy R&D Committee, the R&D Management Committee and the R&D Forum.