The DemoDAIRY board announced late last year it would seek a long-term anchor tenant for the centre’s dairy industry precinct area to improve the centre’s finances.

It also decided to no longer operate a milk production business from April and would sell the 240-cow herd and equipment and lease the 160 hectare farm from April 1, 2016.

However, DemoDAIRY board chairman Ralph Leutton said the search for a tenant for the precinct area had been ununsuccessful, which had forced the board to consider selling the entire enterprise. He said the income from the centre’s dairy was currently only able to service the centre’s debt but was not able to diminish it

“Therefore, unfortunately the board is looking at plan B which may be to liquidate the asset, Mr Leutton said.

The centre’s dairy industry precinct, which has two substantial office blocks, meeting, conference and research buildings, is currently used by the National Centre for Dairy Education but it has less than three years of its lease to run. WestVic Dairy, which is funded by Dairy Australia, relocated from DemoDairy to Camperdown in 2013.

Mr Leutton said the board needed to call a meeting of the more than 350 members of the cooperative who own the centre reach a final decision on the centre’s future. 

“We’d like any active members who have been receiving information from the co-operative to contact DemoDAIRY to ensure they are involved in determining the future,” he said.

Mr Leutton said the sale and liquidation of the property looked to be the likely outcome.

The board had hoped to finalise the matter by April but Mr Leutton said it was still coming to grips with the legal process.

“We need to work with the Registrar of Cooperatives to finalise a disclosure statement which will take some time,” Mr Leutton said.

DemoDAIRY was established 18 years ago as a research and demonstration farm but its on-farm research projects have been phased out and its demonstration activities largely replaced by focus farms.