A buffalo dairy farmer in Far North Queensland is dumping thousands of litres of quality creamy milk as his industry fights for survival.
Key points:
- Demand for buffalo milk and meat has crashed due to COVID-19
- Cheesemakers are also suffering from restaurant closures
- Consumers are being asked to help by eating Australian-made buffalo products
Orders from restaurants, cafes and cheesemakers have all but dried up since strict measures were introduced to prevent the spread of COVID-19 — and the premium market for buffalo meat has also been evaporating.
Every three days Mr Humphries opens the valves on his vat and pours milk through his paddocks into an effluent trap at Millaa Millaa, because his cows still need to be milked and, legally, raw milk cannot be given away.
“It’s just devastating,” Mr Humphries says, who owns Australian Dairy Buffalo Company.
He has called on consumers to help by seeking out Australian-made buffalo cheese and meat at supermarkets.
“I actually had orders on the road and my processors rang me up and said, ‘Don’t send them or turn them back’.”
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He said after breeding buffalo cows for 20 years it was now likely he would need to “dispose” of his herd.
“We can only go on so long pouring milk out and having zero income — with all the costs associated with feeding the animals and running the dairy.”
Margaret Thompson is proud of how far the buffalo industry has come.
ABC Rural: Jennifer Nichols
Dairying with a difference
After dairy deregulation, Margaret Thompson and her late husband, Mal, swapped from milking Guernseys to building up a buffalo herd at Witta, in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland.
“Lots of people who can’t drink ordinary milk can drink buffalo milk.”
The Maleny Buffalo founder used a Churchill scholarship to visit dairies overseas where buffalo cheese has been big business.
“In Italy they have big herds of buffalo,” Ms Thompson said.
“You can go to a big place there where they are all robotically milked and, if you go through the world, buffalo really are the animals of choice for everything.
“It’s a premium product.”
Barry the buffalo bull may be large but he loves hugs from Maleny Buffalo’s Christopher Thompson.
Source: abc.net.au
