ANY Australian dairy farmer will be able to stand for election to the board of the industry's peak lobby group.
This and other constitution changes are part of a new three-year funding deal worth about $1.4 million a year that Australian Dairy Farmers has struck with dairy processors.
Unlike the previous plans floated by the ADF in the past two years, this deal would not require processors to fund the ADF memberships of their suppliers and is therefore much cheaper for the milk companies.
ADF restructure committee chairman Noel Campbell said the deal was still up to six weeks away from finalisation but the move would provide ADF with a stronger financial future.
"We have in-principle support from the 14 largest processors to assist us to finance ADF into the future provided that the work ADF does with that money is whole-of-industry work," Mr Campbell said.
Examples of such work include carbon pricing and the Murray Darling Basin plan.
Other conditions include a new constitution.
"It will be a small board ... representatives will not necessarily be state-based," Mr Campbell said.
"Farmers from any state could actively put their hand up to be a director of ADF."
Before the proposal ADF directors came from the state-based dairy farmer organisation such as the United Dairyfarmers' of Victoria.
ADF membership would "still be by choice", according to Mr Campbell, while the funding from processors will match the money contributed to the organisation by dairy farmers through their state-representative bodies combined with dividend income streams.
The money from milk processors will be determined by milk flow and there will also be a review of the agreement at the end of three years.
If the deal goes through, Mr Campbell said the first election could be at the end of this year.
The new deal means milk factories have to pay less than 10 per cent of the original sum proposed last year by the ADF.
