A crippling drought in southern Australia, combined with sluggish farmgate returns, has left the dairy industry on edge. And for Peter Whitford, its never been so dry.
A bone-bleaching drought on South Australia’s usually fertile Fleurieu Peninsula, flooding rain in northern NSW and southern Queensland.
Dorothea McKellar’s sunburnt country is providing little poetic aid to Australia’s dairy farmers this season.
Prime dairy pastures are pugged in NSW’s Lismore and Nowra regions in the autumnal aftermath of Cyclone Alfred, creating dairy dilemmas from mastitis to sodden hay bales.
Yet swing by South Australia and the other extreme is ensuring the national milk evaporates yet again this financial year.
On the Fleurieu, an hour’s drive southwest from Adelaide, veteran dairy farmer Peter Whitford says its never been so dry.
And he should know — the 91-year-old primary producer is feeding out hay as he chats about the toughest season in his seven decades on the land.
“It’s like the rest of Australia doesn’t realise how dry it is on the Fleurieu Peninsula,” Peter says.
“Absolutely, it’s drier than the lead up to Ash Wednesday in ‘82-’83, drier than the drought years around the early 2000s. With those periods, you got a bit of rain here or there, this time around it’s been barely nothing.”
One hundred kilometres to the northeast at Murray Bridge, the drought hasn’t spared the productivity gains for the highly efficient Altmann family.
Jake Altmann and his family operate a highly intensive, zero grazing dairy operation milking 500 cows, three times a day.
Their three-tiered dairy, beef and cropping business run over an aggregation of 1200 hectares from Murray Bridge and Cooke Plains to Balhannah in the Adelaide Hills, is based around a high capital risk, high reward total mix ration feed management system.
“I’d say it’s the driest season I’ve seen and there’s no sign of any relief,” Altmann says.
“It’s going to rain at some point, the big question is when?
“You can’t control the weather but the processors do have some say over what they pay.
“There should be a step-up of significance, not just a couple of cents here or there. The lack of rain absolutely has an impact on your margins with input costs, so the farmgate has to reflect that as well as the growing demand for milk out there.”
In Victoria’s Gippsland region, farmer Nicole Saunders echoes the price concerns.
“At the moment, the milk price doesn’t reflect where the market is at. We’re very positive about the dairy industry, it has great potential, it’s innovative and really rewarding generally — but you also need to be financially rewarding, like any business,” Saunders says.
“The dairy companies don’t want to pay any more than they have to, and they’re sticking to the lower end of the price spectrum, which is disappointing.”
Australian Dairy Farmers president Ben Bennett has first-hand experience of the drought, operating a farm between Colac and Camperdown in southwest Victoria.
He says while farmers are used to the vagaries of weather, are were frustrated by the pricing inflexibility of processors and supermarkets — with a number of farmers voting with their feet.
“You can’t control the weather and farmers have put up with bad seasons for generations,” Bennett says. “The straw that’s breaking the camel’s back is the way processors and supermarkets are paying chicken feed for milk.
“With the way inflation is going, at $1.55 a litre and $1.45 for three litres of generic milk – we’ll, you’re effectively back to the bad old days of $1 a litre milk and that’s just unsustainable.”
The Australian Dairy Products Federation represents most of the nation’s milk processors and executive officer Janine Waller laments that “a combination of ongoing retail price pressures, contraction of raw milk supply, persistent and rising production and transport costs, compliance constraints, and competitive pressures are reshaping the Australian dairy industry”.
“Fifteen dairy processing businesses have publicly announced their closure over the past two
and a half years,” Waller says.
“You only need to look at our supermarket shelves to witness the range of cheaper imported
dairy products available – cheeses, butter, ice cream.”
James Greenacre of Rosemount Dairy with an Aussie Red heifer at Cressy. Picture: Chris Kidd
With a surname like James Greenacre’s, you would think pastures in his patch of Tasmania are forever emerald. But seasonal conditions on the Apple Isle aren’t peaches and cream — and nor are farmgate prices.
“We’re still looking for rain – spring was pretty good but summer has been poor and autumn is not looking much better,” Greenacre says.
“Costs have crept across the board. Silage costs are 30 per cent higher than they were three years ago; agistment costs are probably 20 per cent higher than they were three years ago; urea has gone up.
“Farmgate prices aren’t matching those price increases. Dairy farmers pride themselves on efficiency — arguably Australia has the most efficient dairy farming sector in the world.
“But when you have input costs rising between 30 and 50 per cent over the past three years and farmgate prices nowhere near matching that, then you can understand why there’s widespread frustration out there.”
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