Queensland dairy farm numbers drop 90pc in four decades
Queensland has lost a staggering 90 per cent of its dairy farms in four decades, going from 3052 in 1980 to 327 in 2020.
That's according to recent Dairy Australia figures, but some in the industry say the number is now closer to 270.
Deregulation in 2000 and the supermarket milk price wars from 2011 are often blamed as the main reasons for farmers exiting the industry or encouraging the shift to larger, more intensive farming systems with greater economies of scale.
Even with the farm gate milk price set to jump significantly in the new financial year, some farmers say the family dairy farm will continue to struggle.
Dairy desert
At Tabooba, south of Beaudesert, Anthony Sellars is the last dairy farmer standing in his area.
"One just up the road shut down two months ago. I'm the only one left on this road now," Mr Sellars said.
Mr Sellars said the supermarket milk wars and rising fertiliser, grain, diesel and herbicide costs had put pressure on dairy farms, shrinking profit margins.
"The government needs to pull the supermarkets in line because they get away with anything they want. They dictate the price that the processors sell milk on," Mr Sellars said.
"It may be getting better, but I don't think so. We are getting a bit of a price rise in July - probably around eight to 10 cents a litre to take it to 83c, but with all the costs that we've incurred lately, we really need a 20c/L pay rise."
Down the road at Christmas Creek, Michael Cahill made the difficult decision to give up dairying in 2017 due to the milk wars and sustaining a serious head injury.
In 2010, he was getting about 58c/L, but when the price fell to 53c/L, it was the last straw.
He sold his family's 300 dairy cows and leased out part of their property and the milking shed, which included five automated milking robots.
"Everything got a bit too hard for me, so I gave up. I sold the cows to someone and they leased the dairy off me. That didn't work out too well, so the dairy's closed now," Mr Cahill said.
"I had been doing a bit of work off-farm milking cows for other people. I'm not doing anything much at the moment.
"It's hard. It's something I've done most of my life and it's hard not to be in it."
Mr Cahill is still looking to sell the milking machines and other equipment, but with not many Queenslanders looking to invest, they will probably go to a southern operation.
He's also still considering leasing the farm, but being a little 'gun shy' from his last experience, it would have to be to the right person.
Despite all the hardships, the farmer still thinks the industry has a bright future.
"It'd be nice to see some young people get back into the industry. It is a good industry to be in."
History preserved at Murgon
As more family dairies sell up or move to more automation, Cynthia Hatchett preserves Queensland's rich dairy history as president of the Queensland Dairy and Heritage Museum at Murgon, north of Kingaroy.
With travel opening up, the museum has been getting up to three busloads of adults and school children a week to soak up the history.
One of Mrs Hatchett's favourite things to do is put on a butter making demonstration - a crowd favourite.
"You'd be surprised by the comments we get. The older generation say, 'I did that before I went to school' or different things like that. It's really lovely to listen to them," Mrs Hatchett said.
The museum contains dairy memorabilia and machinery from across the region, including an old Lister cream separator.
"A number of people that have worked within the industry are very interested to still have a look at it," she said.
"It's surprising the number of men who say, 'Oh, that was my job. I used to have to do that'."
While her parents were not dairy farmers, she fondly remembers visiting farms owned by her aunties and uncles and helping. Her husband Rodney, however, did grow up on a dairy.
"Rodney's mother used to say, 'If the crop failed, you could always rely on your cream check to buy the groceries'," she said.
"I think every farm had some cows and milked cows, and had some pigs and different things, but not anymore. That's the way it is, isn't it? They don't seem to like the little man anymore."
There's still hope for the industry
Harrisville dairy farmer Paul Roderick said there were several factors pushing farmers out, including geography and family matters.
"I think there's outcomes for everyone, but the reality is, some farms are transitioning towards an exit because of all the headwinds and even succession planning and cost of land or alternative land uses," Mr Roderick said.
Mr Roderick said even if prices went into 'the early 80s', it wasn't a guarantee for success.
"We're going to see increased milk prices, but the reality is a lot, if not all of it, will be eaten up with higher grain prices and higher costs with the wet weather," he said.
"While I think there's a really good opportunity with the market, you've got to have a system and you've got to have the resources to be able to run a fairly large enterprise and that requires either family labour or also some employed labour, which is another challenge.
"Dairy has always been pretty good to us and we see a strong future in it but we probably realise to milk the amount of cows on our farm, we probably need to look at better housing and that's going to cost a bit of money but we reckon we can do a better job and iron out some of the seasonal bumps."
Mr Roderick said for the industry to be sustainable for everyone, the cost of production needed to be reflected at the supermarket predominantly.
"There's been 10 years of inertia with the price and I guess we're going to have to see rapidly increasing prices to make up for it, and it's hard for those retailers because they don't like doing that."
However, Mr Roderick, who is also a director at Dairy Australia, said there was hope on the horizon.
"If we get input prices under control and you've got your labour under control, there's a real opportunity for people to grow production with reduced costs and a really good milk price," he said.
"It's not all negative. I'm looking towards the 2023-24 year as the year that maybe dairy can potentially make some good money and maybe even see some new interest or new investment."
Littleproud lays blame for massive new drop in dairy farm numbers
Supermarkets, unions, drought and poor advocacy are all to blame for a massive drop in dairy farm numbers laid bare by last week's levy poll figures, Agriculture Minister David Littleproud says.
The dairy levy poll data showed the number of Australian dairy farms entitled to vote was just 4401, a 13 per cent fall in two years from the 5013 farms in 2019/20.
Mr Littleproud said drought had hit the industry hard and many farmers had taken the opportunity presented by high land prices to leave the industry but he said supermarkets were also responsible.
"I think that supermarkets also played a significant role in that, in basically devaluing the industry," he said, referring to the dollar-a-litre milk war.
"There were big structural changes that need to take place and it doesn't surprise me, but it concerns me deeply," Mr Littleproud said.
While he said dollar-a-litre milk had been "broken, the way forward for the industry required "harmony" and "clear direction".
"I don't think supermarkets, not only on dairy but on a number commodities, are covering themselves in glory and I think that's one of the things that we want to look at, particularly the Nationals, and we'll be bringing our Coalition partners with us on this one, is that there needs to be better reform around how supermarkets deal with perishable goods," Mr Littleproud said.
There would be greater market transparency, he said, that would mean farmers had the same information about production levels and costs as supermarkets, so they could negotiate on a more level playing field.
The Australian Milk Price Initiative, which launched a month ago and was given $500,000 in funding after last election, was an example of a tool designed to increase transparency.
The Minister said the next phase would be to strengthen laws surrounding supermarket negotiations with farmers.
At the moment, he said, the penalties for breaches were just "a cost of doing business" for supermarkets.
"We need to shift to make sure those regulatory guardrails are clear to them but, if they step outside it, there's a penalty and it should be a sizable penalty so they know that, if they breach, it's not just writing out a check for $60-odd thousand dollars, they actually feel it with some financial might," Mr Littleproud said.
On the question of "harmony", Mr Littleproud described Australia's dairy advocacy as "fragmented".
"If you've got fragmented representative bodies, it makes it difficult to know actually what producers really want and that then means that it's difficult for a minister to make a determination," he said.
That fragmentation of dairy advocacy had been obvious, for example, when it came to developing the mandatory code, Mr Littleproud said.
"It was very difficult when you had different forces articulating different things to try and get it all into place," he said.
"Ultimately, what it means is that it either delays any action being taken or action being taken at all."
There had been a great deal of division in the lead up to the dairy levy poll vote, with peak national body Australian Dairy Farmers taking the unprecedented decision to defy its own national council and recommend no increase in the levy.
Mr Littleproud wouldn't be drawn on whether he felt the levy poll was a vote of confidence in Dairy Australia.
"Look, I don't think I want to get into the minutiae of politics of the dairy industry, that's for the members to decide," he said.
"But obviously, in any industry, it's an important principle that levy payers get to determine the percentage, the amount that they put out there and that's a principle but I'll continue to protect regardless of who and what industry body is there."
He would not say whether dairy farmers should have been given the option of a decrease in the levy, or whether the committee that decided on the voting options was truly representative of grass roots farmers.
Instead, Mr Littleproud said there was a mechanism that allowed levy payers to challenge the committee and that angst surrounding producer levies was common across most industries.
He said he had already been approached about having processors pay levies alongside farmers to help fund Dairy Australia, and was happy to explore that possibility if it was supported by industry.
Asked whether he would only act with the backing of peak processor body, the Australian Dairy Products Federation, Mr Littleproud said he needed to investigate further.
"That's the legalities that I'd have to work through but, if in principle that's where industry wants to go, then I'm prepared to explore what legal options I have," he said.
"I'm not afraid to do that if that's where industry thinks that should go, and if they can articulate a reason for that, I'm prepared to explore it."
It's the shortage of labour, however, that has united dairy advocacy groups around Australia.
The Morrison government announced the Ag Visa in September, promising there would be workers on farm by Christmas but only Vietnam has so far agreed to allow its citizens to participate.
Mr Littleproud laid the blame at the feet of the Australian Workers Union.
"We've only been able to get the Vietnam to sign up to the visa as the first country because the AWU demonized farmers and said that they'd exploit their workers so they went to embassies and ambassadors and said to them not to send their citizens because Australian farmers would exploit them," he said.