Struggling dairy farmers are being forced to send their cattle to ‘the choppers’ rather than be milked because they are being paid less than it costs to produce the milk.
The price of the raw product has plunged since May and farmers, many having to repay their co-operative sellers like Murray Goulburn and Frontera tens of thousands of dollars, have been drastically reducing stock by selling to abattoirs along with suffering serious mental health issues.
Victoria is the state which has been hardest hit by the milk crisis sparked when industry giants slashed the raw milk price by up to 10 per cent.
At one sale yard alone up to 700 dairy cows are offered to abattoirs each week, according to a report to be aired on the ABC’s Four Corners on Monday.
Dairy farmers are having to sell up their stock to abattoirs because of falling milk prices with many cows now valued only for their weight by sale yards not milk
The ABC program Four Corners reveals how truckloads of dairy cattle are arriving at sales yards bound for the abattoir as the milk crisis cripples parts of the industry across Australia
Fonterra and Murray Goulburn announced they would slash the gate-price of raw milk by up to 10 per cent in early May impacting farmers across the country
Truckloads of cows are being taken to yards for a quick sale while some farmers are even forced to walk their small herds many kilometres to offload them.
Many farmers, locked into long-term contracts, are incurring heavy monthly debts after the ‘farm-gate prices’ dropped by up to 10 per cent earlier in the year.
South Australian farmer Lorraine Robertson was asked how much money she’d ‘received’ in the past four weeks.
‘It’s minus $16,000. That’s the debt to Fonterra. So I can’t leave, even if I did have somewhere else to go,’ she said.
There are revelations that the cuts to raw and solid milk prices have led to big and small farmers selling up their dairy cattle
Dairy farmers are walking off the land because of price cuts that mean their milk is selling for less than the cost of making it
Cuts announced earlier this year means that in many cases farmers will have to repay hundreds of thousands of dollars because their milk did not sell at the same high price it was bought by processors
NZ-based Fonterra was founded in 2001 and is the world’s largest dairy exporter and has 1200 Australian dairy farmers.
Murray Goulburn co-operative was formed in 1950 and is Australia’s biggest dairy producer with 2600 dairy farmers
The cuts they announced earlier this year means that in many cases farmers will have to repay hundreds of thousands of dollars because their milk did not sell at the same high price it was bought by processors.
Struggling dairy farmers have revealed how they are losing thousands of dollars each month as a result of the significant drop in the price of raw milk
Struggling Australian dairy farmers say they are receiving less money from sellers than what it costs for them to produce the milk, according to ABC TV’s Four Corners
Despite a $555 million rescue package announced by the federal government earlier this year, which some farmers claimed forced them to repay loans at almost double the 1.5 per cent rate the federal government would access the funds, many are selling up to avoid going to the wall.
With concerns over the stress and mental health of farming communities, $900,000 was set aside under the federal government’s package to establish nine new counsellors across Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and Tasmania.
Kathleen Johnston from the southern NSW town of Deniliquin reveals to Four Corners that her farm will lose at least $70,000 a year if they remain in the industry.
And she fears that the price of raw milk will drop again next year.
Chloe Scott, 16, pictured on her family’s Boorcan dairy property in Victoria. The teenager revealed to Daily Mail Australia in May that mounting debts because of the milk price crisis had severely impacted her father Brendan’s business and he ultimately decided to end his 25 years in the dairy industry
But after 25 years the Scott dairy farm business in rural Victoria found the burden of increasing debts from its milk payment contract with co-operative Fonterra too much.
The teenage girl who became the voice of the dairy farmers last month revealed her father Brendan, a third-generation farmer, had made the ‘tough decision’ to leave the industry.
Source: The Daily Mail
