The council's regulatory committee yesterday approved the development of the strategy, which would involve relevant parties, including police, the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) and Federated Farmers working together to provide a solution to the problem.
This comes with an increase in stock effluent spillages on Otago roads during the winter feeding and grazing period, leading to concerns about health and safety hazards to road users.
There was widespread support for the strategy among councillors at yesterday's meeting, but a number suggested it was time to start prosecuting those who broke the rules.
Council chairman Stephen Woodhead said while he supported the strategy, there were "some farmers" who would only get the message if there were prosecutions.
"My initial response is ... let's see how this co-ordinated response goes, but at some stage somebody is going to have to stop a few trucks," he said.
He also said it was time NZTA, as the organisation responsible for national highways, "stepped up" on the issue.
Cr Gerrard Eckhoff said the problem came back to the stock owners and "nobody else".
Dairy farmers needed to give their stock hard feed and stand them for the proper amount of time before they were loaded on to trucks, Mr Eckhoff said.
It was not the trucking companies' fault and therefore they should not be the ones punished, he said.
Chief executive Graeme Martin said only the truck companies - which were responsible for the stock at the time the spills happened - could be prosecuted under current law.
Cr Trevor Kempton said it was time to "get tough" and effluent on roads was a major safety issue, particularly for motorcyclists.
"You can guarantee that a motorcyclist has been seriously injured or killed because of this problem.
"One or two prosecutions may in fact bring home the issue," he said.
Mr Martin said the council should go a "step further" and make a few prosecutions if there was no improvement by next season.
Council director of resource management Selva Selvaraja said the multiparty group would next meet in December and the council wanted to see progress on the issue in time for the busy stock moving season from May to September next year.
