While the voluntary contributions to industry marketing is impressive, these marketing initiatives are unlikely to be sustained in the longer term without some form of compulsory levy. To secure on the key CRC legacies and capitalise on market research investments made by the CRC, FRDC and industry there is a need to support "first movers" who are actively attempting to establish compulsory marketing levies that will in turn support ongoing marketing efforts.

In December 2013, legislation enabling FRDC to collect and disperse compulsory marketing levies was passed. However, as there are likely to be many issues that will need to be resolved before an industry can satisfy the 12 principles and request the government to strike a levy. The ACA and APFA Boards have both passed resolutions to pursue a levy and have asked the Seafood CRC and FRDC to assist. FRDC have agreed to assist the APFA. The ACA is expected to be a far more complex process involving 5 producing states with inactive and active industry participants and will require significantly more resources and time to achieve success. the CRC Board has agreed to invest company "own funds" to support the ACA to undertake an industry stakeholder engagement process and prepare a levy submission that will satisfy the requirements of the Department of Agriculture and importantly the Minister who will make the ultimate decision as to whether a levy can be struck.

The ACA and APFA levy processes will be undertaken concurrently enabling efficiencies to be gained and lessons to be shared. All non commercial in confidence materials will be shared with other industry sectors who may wish to pursue a compulsory marketing levy in the future.

In the long term the POMS Resistance Breeding Levy will secure the future of ASI and by extension selective breeding for Pacific Oysters. This in turn secures the investments made over many years by federal funding agencies. Due to delays achieving unanimous stakeholder support the approval for the levy has been later than anticipated but was formally adopted and implemented from October 13, 2014. As a result of this delay ASI is not in a position to enter into some key contracts in terms of provision of services for current data sets. The most pressing of these is the provision of genetic services undertaken by CSIRO.

The support from CRC for this activity will open up an training opportunity we would like to offer. There are a number of other participants in the CRC who are initiating family breeding programs or planning to initiate these programs. This project thus presents the opportunity of conducting the analysis as a training exercise for CRC participants including key stakeholders in the oyster breeding programs to improve understanding of the process and logistics of implementing family breeding program.