NEW live export protocols tracing Australian cattle along the supply chain should prevent any future trade shutdowns.
This is the opinion of new Cattle Council of Australia president Andrew Ogilvie.
"I think, and certainly hope, the traceability and accreditation (of abattoirs) will prevent anything like that happening again," he said.
The South Australian cattle producer was elected to the peak lobby group late last year, after the live export ban to Indonesia.
Mr Ogilvie, whose family's outfit is one of the 50 largest beef businesses in Australia, is now charged with guiding CCA through the tumultuous jobs of rebuilding the live export industry and restructuring a tired lobby group.
This week he travels to the Middle East, another of Australia's live cattle markets, with Federal Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig to assess the traceability programs.
"Northern producers are still doing it tough," he said.
"The government handled the issue very poorly but since the resumption of the trade they've been doing a good job working with industry."
The CCA is also planning a major restructure to improve its representation and a paper proposing several options will be released later this week.
It will look at how representatives could be drawn from state farmer organisations and directly elected from the industry.
"The lines of representation had blurred between Meat and Livestock Australia and peak councils," Mr Ogilvie said.
"There was confusion; as a result MLA will concentrate on its core business - market access, research and development - and leave political lobbying and issue management to peak councils."
Meanwhile, as urban Australia became more disconnected from food production, animal activist issues were likely to continue unless the industry got on the front foot and presented a more positive image, Mr Ogilvie said.
Agriculture needed to tell its story about safe, ethically produced food instead of just reacting to "put out bushfires".
"The industry has not been directing its energy in the right place, we need to be ahead of these issues and show the positives," he said.
