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