So where are we up to in this dairy crisis......

Last night DH Farmer and myself (along with many other fellow dairy farmers) attended a meeting with our processor Murray Goulburn. We knew that what we were about to hear was not going to make us feel very positive about our farming future. At this point in time we will be paid the pre agreed price for our milk for the months of May and June. We are lucky in NSW as we supply to the Sydney white liquid milk market.  Our milk pricing system is different to our southern farming families who work on a tier system with step ups and step downs depending on what is happening in the milk market. However, like our southern neighbours we will take a price hit starting July. We have not been told this price or by how much it will fall. That news will come at the end of June.We will make the big decision about our dairy farming future once we have more information. In the meantime we will buffer down and prepare for at least three hard years ahead.  We will fill our silos with grain, pre buy fertilizers, and other farming essentials as much as possible.

I would like to say that both DH Farmer and myself felt that Rob Poole who is Executive General Manager of Supplier Relations Murray Goulburn and a representative of the Board of Directors both were genuinely and sincerely sorry and concerned for what was happening to us farmers at this meeting. They admitted that a huge marketing mistake had been made and that this had resulted from a number of factors - sales to  China for Adult Milk Powder was over calculated; the fluctuating Australian Dollar; the global milk markets to mention a few. In the 65 years that this co-operative has existed they have only got their pricing to farmers wrong twice. The last being in 2009 with the GFC and now in 2016. Murray Goulburn has actually borrowed $30 million dollars ( the amount they have overpaid us farmers) which they will repay over the next three years by paying us farmers less over that period of time.  Hopefully global markets will at least stay as they are or even improve over these years. Apparently there is a world over supply of milk and until this balances out things will not improve.

So where to from here? Well we are use to ups and downs. It seems like there have been more downs than ups at the moment. Over the years we have experienced many various kinds of setbacks - droughts; floods; poor milk prices; companies who should never have bought into the world of milk processing and so on. We will be patient. We will wait and see. We will be grateful for what we have - our family; our farm which we fully own; the fact we also have beef cattle income; our good health.

What can you do to help? Please don't buy the cheap $1 a litre milk. To us in dairy farming this is the bane of our lives. It is a supermarket ploy to get you to walk into their store and purchase other more expensive products. But not our valued product - branded milk.
Think about what you do for a living. How would you feel if your work you produced was not truly valued by your employer, your friends and society as a whole? Do you get up at 5 o'clock EVERYDAY of the year and go and milk cows - rain, hail or shine, in sickness and health??? Do you sit on a tractor for endless hours ploughing the ground to sow pastures to feed the cows through the cold winter months??? Do you milk the cows every afternoon EVERYDAY of the year?? Even the days your children are born, your children get married, Christmas Day, New Year's day? Do you have to buy a tractor worth $60000 plus countless pieces of machinery to sow those pastures to do your work??? Is your fuel bill over $1500 a month? How big are your vet bills each and every month??? Do you have to dig holes and put up endless kilometres of fences??? Do you get disgusted when your work is under valued by being paid $1 for a litre of milk which costs you almost that amount to produce??? This is what truly breaks the heart of dairy farmers.

We are angry. We are hurt. We are disillusioned. BUT we are resilient. We are tough. We are survivors!!! We will get through this!

In our part of the world our milk is the Devondale brand owned by Murray Goulburn. Murray Goulburn is a farmer owned co-operative owned by us the farmers who supply to it. 100% Australian owned. Do some research on the food you are buying.Think about what you are buying. So it costs you a bit more money to buy branded milk and products and Australian products. We produce some of the best quality food in the entire world. Isn't that worth something to you and your family? Believe me ,we are grateful when you do buy our branded products.

We are a 5th generation dairy farming family - will we have another generation of farmers??

Until next time.....
Carol

All is not well in the dairy industry.....

I know it has been ages since I blogged. As I said in my last blog - I think life is about to get a lot busier and so it has. I feel I have something important to talk to you all about - All is not well in the dairy industry!!!! There are no pictures to make this blog look pretty and appealing because it isn't BUT please keep reading.

Something has happened to our dairy industry in Australia which I think you should all be made aware of. You already know that being a dairy farmer means a huge commitment not only as far as lifestyle but also as far as financial commitments. Recently our milk processor, Murray Goulburn, stated that there will be a huge drop in the farm gate price their dairy farmers are going to be paid for their milk. Due to economic circumstances and decisions made by this processor they have overpaid their farmers by apparently approximately 30 million dollars. How can such an error occur one might ask??? Poor decision making at the top; trade agreements; the world dairy commodity prices??? The bottom line is that we as farmers are being made to repay this money over the next three years by paying us an unviable and unsustainable price for our milk.
We have been very lucky with a great season over the past year. It has become dry here at home and we are in urgent need of rain. DH Farmer has sown some of our winter feed. Most has shot but is struggling. It will be a tough winter if rain does not come soon. We have a good backlog of silage and hay we made earlier in the year for use in just such situations. So for the time being we are okay. I wish I could say the same for our fellow dairy farming families in Victoria. They have been hit hard by drought, high grain prices and now a brutal blow of a huge drop in farm gate milk prices.  Many are running at huge losses this financial year. Any farm with a debt is in even further trouble. Our processor, Murray Goulburn, and Dairy Australia and other dairy industry bodies are showing huge concern for the mental and physical well being of these farmers and their families. There is talk of mental illness and that dreaded word "suicide". Many are at breaking point and are closing up their businesses. We all need to be aware and concerned of this.

So I come to this and it is something I do not ask you to do lightly. Could you please sign a petition linked below. Maybe it will make a difference - maybe it won't. Who knows BUT I feel that I have to do something to stop this situation from getting any worse. There is an election soon. Will any of our politicians listen I wonder?
Here is the link to this petition:

Raise the milk price for struggling farmers

If you do sign this petition I thank you for your support to our farming families and the Australian Dairy industry. If you don't then I thank you for taking the time to read this blog and at least be a little more aware about what is happening in our farming industry. Hopefully things are not as dire as we in the industry fear but somehow I think our concerns are valid.

Until next time......
Carol