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

What a difference rain makes!

Over the past 5 to 6 weeks we have been  fortunate in the amount of rain that has fallen in our local area. You sometimes hear people make the comment "Oh no! Not rain again!" Living on a farm we never ever say "Oh no! Not rain again!" Even if it has been raining non stop for weeks on end and the dairy is as muddy and boggy as anything. We never forget how bad it is when we don't have enough rain. Being on a dry farm ( meaning no irrigation) we totally rely on rain to grow our pastures for all our cattle and also provide fresh water for our cattle to drink.

One of our largest dams almost dry in December 2014.

As you can see from the photos above last year was a year with little rain. We only had 818 mls (approximately 32 inches) in 2014 of which 263 mls fell in the month of December. Our yearly average is around 40 inches or 1000 mls. We had dams which were completely dry or so boggy with mud that we had to do a dam check every day to make sure our cattle were not getting bogged in the mud. Last July we had a lot of our dams excavated whilst they were so low in the hope that they would soon be full.  The amount of silt and mud removed was huge. With recent rain and storms some but not all of our dams are now full. It is a sigh of relief ! The cattle now have fresh water and plenty of grass to feed on. They are looking much  stronger and more contented! And so is DH Farmer!

The same dam as above only 6 weeks later!

Natural pastures everywhere now.

The next big job on farm will be making all that lovely natural pasture into silage. We just have to have a window of no rain for a few days to do this! Did I just say we don't want any rain??? Oh the life on the land....
Until next time
Carol