Sir John Monash Gold Medal Award for Agribusiness Co-operative Directors 1998

Mr Ian Langdon, Chairman, Dairy Farmers Group

Ian Langdon has contributed to the promotion of co-operative philosophy and principles over many years through his publications, seminar presentations and most importantly through his chairmanship of the Dairy Farmers Group. His views are sought internationally and within Australia by other co-operative associations and the media.

Ian has clearly demonstrated leadership and policy innovation. He has promoted the need for large commercial co-operatives to be competitive with listed national and international companies operating within the same commercial arenas. He has also identified the lack of funding flexibility as one of the most significant limitations facing co-operatives. Initially with the Diary Farmers Group he addressed this issue through sound profit retention policies and the introduction of member share investment programs. The combination of member endorsed compulsory share investment, voluntary dividend reinvestment plus bonus issues and shares has seen the Dairy Farmers Group issued capital significantly increase. Ian was also primarily responsible for the introduction of accounting procedures that separated the ownership component for farm outputs from their commercial value. This distinction makes the co-operative more accountable for its performance. Ian's leadership also facilitated a number of cross state boundary co-operative mergers during a period when differences in state legislation presented many difficulties.

During Ian's period as chairman, the Dairy Farmers group has increased its revenue from $394m to $1.1b annually and profit has increased from approximately $1m after tax to $34m. The group has also established market leadership in a number of key product areas in direct competition with large listed proprietary companies and has succeeded in purchasing major packaging facilities and brands such as coon.

As a non-farmer director and chairman, Ian has a special obligation to act as a constructive bridge between the farmer directors, farmer members and the management of the co-operative. To this end he has assumed a high profile not only internally amongst the membership but also amongst external stakeholders.

The Dairy Farmers Group has identified export expansion and a global trading vision as necessary if farmer members are to have the capacity to grow their on farm production. To this end Dairy Farmers introduced innovative supply arrangements for its membership that provides a co-operative commitment for a prescribed minimum growth and is also proposing to introduce a new funding structure called the Equilibrium Model which aims to balance the needs of all stakeholders and provide financial means of achieving its global vision.

Ian initiated an international forum of Chairman, Deputy Chairman and CEO's that now formally meet biannually and commercially seek inter co-operative trading and member relations. The fact that all of these leading co-operatives accepted Ian's initiative is testimony to his acceptance as a co-operative leader on a global basis.