SOUTHERN Downs dairy farmers joined their Darling Downs neighbours at the Toowoomba Ag Show this week to call on politicians ahead of the Federal Election to support dairy farming families.
QDO President Brian Tessmann said farmers were frustrated that government was failing to address the damaging effects that were wreaking havoc on the Queensland dairy industry and forcing dairy farmers out of business.
He claimed this was caused by the ruthless marketing tactics and excessive power of major supermarkets.
“It’s been over two and a half years since Coles first dropped the price of its store-brand milk to the unstainable level of $1/litre, in the middle of natural disasters when the Queensland dairy industry was already struggling. We are short of milk to meet the daily needs of Queenslanders,” Mr Tessmann said.
“We have had two Senate inquiries that have led basically nowhere, and the Federal Government has done nothing to stop the damage, even though a number of individual politicians could see the truth, and for farmers this is simply unacceptable.
“The QDO had clearly spelt out to the Senate Inquiries and to the government about the impacts which would hit farmers and processors and the implications of those impacts.”
Mr Tessmann said the QDO case put to Government back in 2011 has been proven true.
“The ruthless retail milk discounting, led by Coles, has hit processor profits, and forced down milk prices to farmers to where the majority of Queensland dairy farmers are making losses,” he said.
“This has seen more than 80 dairy farming families exit the industry, at a time when the State is short of milk to meet the needs of Queensland consumers.”
The loss of these dairy farmers equates to a loss of some 80 million litres of fresh milk production per annum and a loss of over $240 million in investment in fresh milk production, along with more than 240 jobs at a farm level and more people losing their jobs along the value chain.
