The RMPP is a consortium of red meat sector participants completing a Primary Growth Partnership agreement, aimed at building capability and making the red meat sector more profitable, confident and productive.
It involves meat companies Alliance Group, Silver Fern Farms, Anzco, Greenlea, Blue Sky Meats and Progressive Meats; ANZ and Rabobank, business services firm Deloitte, and industry-good organisation Beef and Lamb New Zealand.
The programme will be supported by an investment of $64 million over seven years: $19.3 million from sheep and beef farmers through Beef and Lamb NZ, $13 million from industry and $32 million from the Crown.
Mr Bailey is a director of both Fonterra and Westpac NZ Ltd, chairman of the Dairy Companies Association of New Zealand and a member of the Food and Agriculture International Trade Policy Council.
He is also a former national president of Federated Farmers and a former special agricultural trade envoy for the Crown.
The RMPP provided an opportunity to achieve a ''step change'' in farm productivity and sector performance. The challenge of helping steer the group was exciting, he said.
Earlier this month, representatives of the sheep meat sectors in the UK, France and New Zealand agreed the volatility of returns was affecting the long-term viability of their respective sheep meat sectors.
A cross-sector group from the UK and France visited New Zealand on a fact-finding mission to better understand the outlook for New Zealand sheep farmers and to identify and discuss common challenges.
They met representatives from industry organisations, farming groups and meat processing and exporting companies. All the producer organisations agreed sheep meat supplies from the northern and southern hemispheres were complementary and vital to ensure lamb was available on supermarket shelves in European markets throughout the year, Beef and Lamb NZ chairman Mike Petersen said.
While there was ''every sign'' returns would improve over the medium term, the organisations considered there was an opportunity over the next six months for producers, processors and exporters ''on both sides of the world'' to better understand market dynamics and to consider how more stable returns might be able to be generated in the future, improving the long-term viability of the sector, Mr Petersen said.
