Thought Leadership and Opinion Archives - Page 30 of 35 - Clover Hill Diaries

Sacrebleu what is she thinking !!!!!!!

Next week I am off to Adelaide to participate in the Agriculture for the Future Debate@TheWaite where the affirmative team will be saying “Every Australian child should be taught agriculture at school” see link here.

When the gorgeous Dr Heather Bray rang me to invite me to participate I think she was pretty shocked when I said I wanted to be on team negative.

I have very strong opinions in this area and I definitely DONT think every Australian child should be taught agriculture at school. I do firmly believe we must strive to build communities without borders and remove the veil of mystery that separates consumers from the land that produces our food and the hands that grow it. However I don’t think making it mandatory for every child to study agriculture is the best way to do this. So please fellow farmers don’t judge me too harshly yet as I will be very surprised if the majority of you don’t agree with my arguments when you hear them.

But you will have to wait – this is a debate with winners and losers and I like to win so I cant share too much with you yet.

I assure you it will be fun so if you are in Adelaide on the 18th why not you join us?. For all you tweeps out there key messages from the debate will be tweeted live.

FYI from the flyer

Australia’s agricultural workforce is aging. The median age of farmers is 53, compared to 39 for other workers. Our agricultural workforce is also shrinking, declining 22% in the last 12 years.
Agriculture is facing more than a skills shortage; we need a ‘Generation F’ – the next generation of educated, ambitious young people to ensure Australia’s role as a food-producing nation into the future. But where will they come from?
A recent survey showed that Australian school students knew little about agriculture; 75% thought cotton socks were an animal product and 45% could not identify that everyday lunchbox items such as bananas, bread and cheese originated from farms. Students who know little about agriculture are even less likely to consider it as a career path.
Farming is usually portrayed in the media as a tough gig. Farmers work longer hours and are at the mercy of the weather and economic factors that are largely beyond their control. Why would our best and brightest want to go into agriculture when so many industry stories focus on ‘doom and gloom’?
Making agriculture compulsory in schools would not only improve food knowledge, but also highlight the role of business skills and specialised technical knowledge in modern agriculture, revealing the opportunities for young people in this vital and dynamic industry. But with so much already crammed into the school curriculum, do we need to be prepared to lose something to attract more people into agriculture?
So, should we be exposing all school students to agriculture and encouraging our young people into the sector with the promise of a brilliant career?
Or is it really up to the agricultural sector itself to make the industry more attractive to young people and remove some of the barriers that prevent them from entering it more easily?

This debate, moderated by Dr Paul Willis, RiAus, will explore all these issues, as six experts in two teams argue for your vote.

Finger food provided and cash bar available

When: 6.00pm-8.30pm,
Thursday 18 October
Where: Lirra Lirra Cafe, Waite Road,
Waite Campus, Urrbrae

Admission is free, but prior registration is
essential as seats are strictly limited

Go to http://www.waitedebate-school.eventbrite.com
to secure your tickets.

Mirror Mirror Do you like what you see?

Last Saturday was no ordinary day in the life of this dairy farmer and the Bundanon Siteworks event FUTURE FOOD FEAST A DAY OF TALKING, EATING & DOING still has my head spinning.

Gretel Killeen was a last minute replacement for Jenny Brockie as the panel facilitator which required a green room huddle to allow her to get up to speed on who the panel was and what motivated us. What was great about this was it meant the panellists also got insights into each other. It soon became obvious the afternoon would open my mind to many new ideas and concepts that I was positive would be equally exciting to the audience.

Gretel Killeen filled in as facilitator after Jenny Brockie broke her arm

I was lucky enough to share a lunch table with fellow panellist and future architect Mike McCallum who as it turns out also has an extensive background in the dairy industry

The Panel: LtoR Gretel Killeen, Lynne Strong, Jared Ingersoll, Mike McCallum, Jodie Newcombe, John Crawford and Ingrid Just.

I was there to share my story and listen and learn and did just that. The conversation went for more than 2 hours and to do it justice I am asking each of the panellists to write a guest blog. You will be excited to know Chef Jared Ingersoll and Mike McCallum have already been asked and agreed.

To start of off just a few thoughts from me.

I know there are a million things I can do to reduce my footprint and I am always saddened that people see our present and future challenges as wicked problems – i.e. too big for them as individuals to make a difference. As Jarod said “ broad scale change starts when one person does something”. By the way here are some things you can do http://www2.acfonline.org.au/
I am amazed that people think there is always a way to make the planet fit the the lifestyle we have created for ourselves and refuse to believe that what we think is good for us is too often not good for the planet. For example the suggestion that we protect prime agriculture land and reduce our footprint by more people living in one house or our buildings should go up rather than out and we share white goods and cars was met with shock horror by one audience participant and he was very upfront about it.
I cant believe how many people must think farming is easy. There was a suggestion from the audience that the answer to prime agriculture land being gobbled up by housing was for the government to pay the people in the houses incentives to grow food on their land. Isn’t that subsidised farming and just when will these people find the time and where will they get the skills sets? There was the idea that instead of supporting rural and regional and remote Australia everyone moves to the cities and urban agriculture will grow all our food. We then let rural, regional and remote Australia go back to the “way it was” and it be a community space. Wouldn’t the government love that one. With farmers now looking after 61% of the Australian landscape imagine what a huge impost looking after all that land would be on taxpayers let alone the infrastructure et al required to grow all our food in and around millions of people.
I am always saddened by some people’s perceptions of modern farming practices and that their knowledge comes from things they had heard or read about rather than seen. There was mention of factory farmed cows being fed cement dust and the answer to everything was to farm organic. As Professor Crawford reminded people there was no evidence to show that organic per se led to better environmental or animal welfare outcomes. Poor old cows got a bit of bashing as usual. People forget or are unaware that only 2% of Australia is suitable for growing crops and what a great job cows in Australia do maintaining the thousands and thousand of hectares of rangelands in this country and no-one in Australia is chopping down rainforest to graze cows
I was pleased to see people do value farmers and believe we should value food at its true price and panellist Ingrid Just from Choice talked about the “heart and the hip” scenario and I look forward to her sharing that with you.
I was pleased to overhear that I was not the “usual angry farmer”. Its disappointing our farmers are often perceived this way. It was very obvious the community would love to work with us to achieve a value chain that really values people from paddock to plate.
I was also found I had a lot to learn for the diverse knowledge of the other panellists and I am very pleased to be able to off them space to share that with you in the coming weeks

Back to “Mirror Mirror do you like what you see?” Pam Green posed this question in her summing up of the panel discussion. Here is what Pam saw as the key take away messages

There is a coming storm of many ‘peaks’ – water, soil, oil, current centralised systems, biodiversity. There is only one water, one planet.
A functioning, healthy environment is the key to health, well being and prosperity.
A raised awareness/mindfulness/shift in consciousness is essential.
Awareness, education and making it easy and economical is key to enabling good choices.
There is a need to develop new traditions to support new values – real value of food in social, cultural, environmental and economic terms.
Growing ideas as well as food important. Artists are innovators and develop creative space for change.
There is a need for better awareness of true account for use of natural resources – what is the carbon or environmental footprint of food production what are the transparent trade offs in land use change for housing, mining, other uses? National environmental accounts to be viewed along side of our national economic accounts.
The importance of connectivity – joined up thinking about the whole web of life. Humans are part of this web but we need to manage our change of the rest of the biosphere with the future in mind.
We need to envision the future, map a path to it and start the journey.
Local leadership is critical. We are on the cusp of a new age of networked and distributed economy and society.
Society is the mirror of our collective humanness

Mirror, mirror on the wall, do we like what we see? We are the change we seek. Well said Pam

By the way for those of you not familiar with the venue Bundanon is Arthur and Yvonne Boyd’s gift to the Australian people. The property managed by a Trust includes the Bundanon Homestead site and the Riversdale site and is located on 1,100 hectares of pristine bush land overlooking the Shoalhaven River, near Nowra in New South Wales, two and a half hours south of Sydney. The Trust’s Board of Directors reports directly to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, who in turn appoints the Chairperson and the Directors.

Bundanon House

Arthur Boyd’s studio at Bundanon – photo by Keith Saunders

We had tea at the Riversdale Education Centre in this amazing building designed by Glenn Murcutt. Yes that is the Shoalhaven River you see in the background and I thought I lived in paradise.

The Riversdale Exterior

There are art forms everywhere you look

There was something for everyone

Local foodie and cafe owner Cathy Law manned the Green Box Stand

We dined on Bundanon Beef and Farm Manager Henry Goodall created a Paddock to Plate video which was available for viewing in the Bundanon Homestead. He also tanned the hide which is the rug you see on the floor

The farmers Henry Goodall and Lynne Strong ( proving she has a very big mouth)

There is more to come

A DAY OF TALKING, EATING & DOING.

This Saturday my diary will see me on a 2.30 pm panel discussion led by Jenny Brockie of Insight fame as part of the Siteworks event FUTURE FOOD FEAST A DAY OF TALKING, EATING & DOING. The event is billed as a day of experiences about growing and eating food with consumers, farmers, artists and activists at the Bundanon Trust.

My fellow panellists are:

John Crawford – Scientist

Jared Ingersoll – Chef

Ingrid Just – Consumer Advocate

Michael McAllum – Futurist

Jodie Newcombe – Economist

and yours truly Lynne Strong – Farmer

I have done a little research on the philosophies of my fellow panellists and DR GOOGLE tells me we are a diverse group indeed.

I have also done a a little background on the ethical shopping habits of Australian consumers

Thanks to the Australian Food and Grocery Council and Net Balance report of 2010 there is an interesting report that sheds some light on the attitudes and behaviour of Australian urban shoppers.

It is particularly relevant to us farmers as the report focuses on the decisions customers make about selecting GREEN products.

By “GREEN” they mean environmentally friendly – but there is quite a bit of crossover in consumers minds about these products being good for animal welfare and for social reasons as well.

For example ‘Barn laid’ eggs are seen as a ‘green’ product by consumers when in fact they have a higher environmental foot print than caged eggs.

The report sheds some light on the differences between what consumers SAY they want… and what they actually DO. That is shoppers were asked about their ‘green’ product preferences and then their shopping trolley was actually examined to see what they had actually done.

And this is what our urban customers say..

Most people surveyed (93%) think that it is important for the retailer to make an effort to reduce their environmental impact and most are concerned about the impact on the environment of the products that they buy. I.e.… everyone else should be doing something!

80% said they think about environmental issues when they buy
And 50% have taken the time to inform themselves of the green credential of at least some products….

But here is the killer – when their shopping trolleys were examined – only 13% had actually knowingly made a ‘green’ purchase

Personally I feel just as strongly about sustainable food consumption as I do about sustainable food production. I don’t seek out green products but I do strive to only buy what I need and waste as little as possible of what I buy

This Saturday I am looking forward to both listening to what my fellow panellists and the audience say and having my opportunity to share agriculture’s story and then sharing it all with you.

Living like the Packers

Michael and I don’t go away very much. In fact I am having trouble remembering when we last had a break. I think it was 18 months ago when I was asked to speak at an MLA workshop and we took a few days and went up the Sunshine Coast. In fact I don’t think we have been anywhere in the last 5 years that didn’t involve me speaking at a conference. Sad but true but then we do live in paradise so I am not complaining too much.

When we do go away we like to pretend we are the Packers on the first and last day. So we booked into the Crown Towers Melbourne on the way to the conference and finished the week at the Blackman Hotel (part of the Art Series of Hotels) in St Kilda Rd and what a contrast of extremes that proved to be.

Maybe it is the fact that the Packers own the Crown Towers and really know how to give you the Packer Experience. It was magnificent, from the man opening the front door, to service at the front desk, to the room service to the choice of all those magnificent restaurants along the Yarra to the shops.

The shopping experience at the Crown Towers.( FYI I left my credit card in the room)

The Blackman on the other hand couldn’t be a more ordinary experience. The cost of the room was 50% more, no-one opened the door, the person at the front desk is the concierge, the “Guest Experience” person ( still to figure out what that is) and from what I could see doubles as a waiter in the restaurant conveniently located next to the check in desk.

Let me show you a few classic so you can the gist

When I saw this machine in the cupboard of our room at the Blackman I go you beauty I can make an espresso. Now to do this you have to put the machine on the washing machine ( yes that was the only power point where you could actually reach the espresso machine) but there were no instructions, no cups small enough to fit under the spout let alone a jug to froth the milk. Oh well nice idea just impossible to execute

Then there was the bathroom!!!! it was so small I couldn’t get an angle to get a picture to show you what it was like, unlike the Crown Towers where you could even watch TV in the bath

Luxury Packer Style. The bathroom at the Crown Towers

I am beginning to think you can tell the quality of a hotel by the flowers. Yes you guessed it there was plenty of art at the Blackman matched only by vases and vases of plastic flowers.

The Blackman Hotel where all the plastic flowers go to party

The Crown Towers on the other hand looked like Floriade had come to party. Divine

It goes without saying we wont be visiting the Blackman again but I will be praying for another conference gig in Melbourne where we can have our first and last night in bliss at the Crown Towers.

Note to self when you book the hotel don’t just ask for them to put REAL milk in the fridge, ask whether the flowers are real or lifetime polluters

We like to eat like the Packers every now and then so my next post will share with you the culinary delights of Melbourne

How will I spend $50K

This week I was honoured and humbled to receive agriculture’s newest and most prestigious accolade The Bob Hawke Landcare Award in front of 850 people at the Sydney Convention Centre.

As you can see from this picture I was pretty chuffed

Me with National Young Landcarer of the Year and Young Eco Champion Megan Rowlatt

The adorable John Carter from South East Landcare and Megan

It was Michael’s first outing since his big op and he was determined to be there and he was pretty pleased that he pulled that off

The award comes with two extraordinary opportunities. Firstly I will receive a prize of up to $50,000 to develop my knowledge and skills in sustainable land management and secondly I will also have an honorary position on the Australian Landcare Council for a period of two years.

So you may ask what am going to do with $50K. Well firstly I wont be spending on me .

What I would like to do is look at change and what drives change and what hinders change. I would like to look at this from three different angles. Firstly young people, secondly my generation and thirdly farmers in my region. My project will be cross industry and I look forward to meeting lots of new and exciting and dynamic thought leaders and doers in the agrifood sector.

I firmly believe farmers of today do not have the opportunity to access and develop the skills sets that will allow them to survive and prosper in 21st. Firstly we have to acknowledge that producing great food and fibre just isn’t good enough any more. Secondly we have just got to get out there more and build relationships with all the key players and pivotally get intimate knowledge and understanding of how the supply chain works.

We have got to be able predict what our customers are thinking before they think it. We have to be able to predict what the processors and manufacturers are thinking before think it and we have to be able to predict what the supermarkets are thinking before they think it. We have to be at least one step ahead of the curve every step of the way. This will require expertise farmers have not traditionally had access to and my commitment to my fellow farmers is to change this paradigm in my lifetime.

My vision is for an exciting, dynamic, innovative and PROFITABLE agrifood sector that our next generation best and brightest see as a career of first choice. My mission is to turn my vision into everyone’s vision and this will require government, industry, the community and farmers, in fact the whole of supply chain working side by side.

First stop for me is the Bush Capital next Tuesday where I have meetings with policy and decision makers as well as the opportunity to attend the DAFF Youth in Ag Think Tank and hear what the bright young minds see as the way forward for agriculture in this country

Let me re-share this reflection with you on why I farm and why I live and breathe my mission

I am often asked why I like being a farmer and to be honest it was never my lifelong dream to farm. I farm today because the people I most care about in the world farm and they are in it for the long haul.

I grew up on a farm and even though I enjoyed being hands on in the day to day running of the farm and the lifestyle that comes with it the idea of being a farmer was most definitely not on my list of top 10 professions.

I have been back on the farm for ten years now and I will be the first to admit farming is a highly rewarding profession for a multitude of reasons.

Today I will list just a few

Firstly farmers are an essential service, they feed people and whether people admit it or not everybody wants to be needed.

Secondly farming today is a very risky business and I like the mental intensity, the constant review process, the drive to get up each day and do it better. The fulfilling challenge of balancing productivity, people, animals and the planet

Thirdly inspirational people farm. Feeding, clothing and housing the world now and in the next 50 years is going to require an extraordinary effort. This means we need extraordinary people to take up the challenge. When I work with inspirational people, they light my fire, feed my soul and challenge me to continue to strive to make a unique contribution to agriculture and the community.

and then there is this

the satisfaction you get when you have managed to farm in a way that balances the needs of the rainforest and the animals who live there

with farm productivity that allows you to supply 50,000 Australians daily with milk whilst at the same time ensuring your cows cow remain happy and healthy.

the buzz you get when next gen share the passion and commitment

the fascination of watching generations of cows tread the same path each time they walk into the paddock

the amusement you get when the cow who detours to the water trough

then charges down the paddock like a teenager to ensure she doesn’t miss out on the sweetest grass

and the special relationships you develop with the people and the animals in your team

the satisfaction of working with next gen

Why I farm

VIEW SLIDE SHOW

to turn this

into this

then this

and today

Picasso Corner a triumph for community partnerships, biodiversity and the farm

and then the raw reality of watching the circle of life each day. When the chickens you nurtured from eggs are killed and eaten by a goshawk (thanks to twitter verse for identifying my nasty bird) and wake up next morning and remember the chickens got three weeks of a great life they wouldn’t have had without you interfering with nature. Even if in the end it was nature who decided they would play a different role in the food chain .

I love to farm because its real, there is a true sense of place and time. There is an purity and an innocence that comes with a respect of the land that feeds us that living and working in the city will never deliver.

BTW Thank you so much to everyone for the emails, phone calls, flowers, twitter you have all been so wonderful with messages of congratulations. Totally overwhelming xoxoxo

Milk comes from thistles or is that coconuts

This post is in honour of International Bacon Day which just happens to be today (now I bet you didn’t know that)

According to Wiki ‘Bacon Day celebrations typically include social gatherings during which participants create and consume dishes containing bacon, including bacon-themed breakfasts, lunches, dinners, desserts, and drinks’.

Bacon Day was conceived in Massachusetts in 2000. International Bacon Day has now spread to Canada and other countries where it is often held at different times of the year The record for the number of different bacon dishes belongs to Thomas Green, of Ottawa, Ontario who created ( I don’t think he ate them all ) 12 bacon dishes. This list included candied bacon, maple bacon and chevre points, bacon screwdrivers jell-o style, bacon vodka gazpacho, chili bacon vodka, pork stuffed with bacon, apple and sage, bacon donuts, chocolate bacon brownies, banana bacon cookies, bacon martini, bacon burger sliders and bacon and egg sliders. A veritable pork smorgasbord

The post is inspired by this twitter conversation instigated by Farmers Angel Alison Fairleigh yesterday that believe it or not revolved around bacon and its origins

This reminded me of this picture and then of course who can forget that frightening statistics from the @OZPIEF study that found that too many kids think yogurt grows on trees

Now as you know it breaks my heart that farmers don’t have the marketing power and financial might to tell the real story of agriculture but as you can see there is one hell of a great opportunity out there if we can just get it right.

This week I spoke at the ABARES regional conference in Bega. This is part of what I had to say and a couple of my key messages

I have a vision for agriculture that is full of promise.

I want an innovative exciting dynamic and profitable agrifood sector. A sector that our next generation best and brightest sees as a career of first choice

I see my role is to turn my vision for agriculture into everyone’s vision

We need smart and articulate and capable people working in agriculture so we can take it to the next level?

We need a supply chain culture that values our farmers

We need government and industry programs that believe in our farmers and invest in them?

We need to identify our young people in agriculture, nurture them and promote them and ensure we retain this talent.

There was a lot of questions from the floor about how we best tell Agriculture’s story with the limited resources and funding we have. It was very clear that the Young Farming Champions program concept truly resonated with everyone in the audience.

But there is nothing more powerful than a living breathing example of the program in action and no-one was more proud than me to see Young Farming Champion Jess Monteith in action on the ABARES panel which rounded off the conference

Jess Monteith, Young Farming Champion with Sonia Muir and Lana Mitchell on the ABARES Bega Panel

Now this isn’t an easy gig for a young person. Check out the panel topics which included demographic change, agricultural trade and markets in an Asian century, water, energy, trade and efficiency, future producers, labour and skills, future industries (& foods), new technologies and regional development futures, Agri-tourism, Urban-rural relationships, land-use (conflicts).

When Dr Anna Carr from ABARES asked me to put forward a name that fitted the brief “Non farming background, young face – someone who has energy to burn and ideas in abundance who will show agriculture in a new context” Jess’ name sprang instantly to mind.

Like me fellow panellist Sonia Muir believes creating a community which is engaged with, & informed about agriculture is our most important job and the way to do this is to ensure we have articulate, well educated, charismatic young farming people telling our story for us.

The question was asked of Jess how do we get the real story of agriculture out there into the wider community

She answered “Engagement is the key, we need a nationwide network of young farming champions like the group I am part of, professionally trained to go into schools and tell our story and agriculture’s story to young people and the community”

Jess is so right. Who better to tell the real story of food than the farmers, the hands that grow it and the caretakers of the land that produces.

Its time to get smart agriculture we have a few skill sets to hone but if Jess is an example of what can happen with the right skills sets we could make no better investment

A Sucker for Good News Stories

Must admit I was feeling a bit overwhelmed today for a number of reasons which I wont bore you with.

I know we all have those days when we just want to scream, when you seem surrounded by self interested, non productive green house gas emitters, who you wish would just get off the planet

Well I was having one of those days and then this arrived in my inbox and I smiled and all was once right again with the world.

This is Bobbi and she is a Jersey Holstein cross 3 weeks old little heifer we gave away yesterday to some wonderful people who as you can see are giving her a life of luxury.

Bobbi has a new mum. Just to add to the liquorice allsorts mix her new mum is a Brown Swiss.

I had call yesterday from Bobbi’s new owner who was distressed about Bobbi’s new mum

Apparently her next door neighbour’s Angus bull had jumped the fence, impregnated her Brown Swiss cow who is a companion for her horse and sadly the resulting offspring did not survive

At Clover Hill the team is thrilled Bobbi is now surround by all this love, cuddly blankets and fireside moments.

What do you reckon. I think marshmallows and hot chocolate might be on the agenda later tonite for Bobbi

Why Coles should stop the Milk Price Wars

Today Young Farming Champion Jess Monteith and I went to visit her friends Tim and Natalie Cochrane. You can read an earlier post about Jess here

Jess wasn’t born on a farm but after meeting people like Nat and Tim who own a dairy farm at Terara just north of Nowra and helping them show cattle she fell in love with all things dairy . Jess’ little herd of registered Holstein and Illawarra cows now live at Tim and Natalie’s property with each new drop of calves helping set up a future for Jess to start providing milk for lots of Australian families just like her friends.

The visit today was to get some more photos for Jess’ Archibull Prize in school presentation. Jess is being sponsored by Paul’s Milk and will visit Caroline Chisholm College at Glenmore Park in her role as a Young Farming Champion.

Jess and her favourite cow Eve

I was struck today by all these young people full of hope for a bright future in the dairy industry not just Jess but Tim and Nat who have two small children

Tim and Nat milk four hundred cows. Generations of farming families and cow families make them and their cows the team they are today

The next generation wait their turn to join the herd

Everybody waiting and wondering if there will even be any dairy cows let alone farming families on the flats at Terara if the crippling milk price wars don’t stop soon.

Jess’ favourite cow Eve on the day she was born

People in the dairy industry have a very close relationship with their cows. The nature of the industry means husbands and wives work side by side and often their children join them in the dairy.

This photo says it all

Dairy farming today is technology rich and phenomenal efficiency gains mean we can produce 60% more milk from 50% less cows than we did 50 years. They tells us if we do x,y, and z we can achieve further efficiency gains and maybe even survive this senseless round of milk price discounting being conducted by Coles.

But we can only work so many hours a week, what we need is smart young people like Jess working in agriculture and we need a milk supply chain culture that values people

The dairy industry needs to be able to invest in our young people and nurture them. Tell me Coles how we do that on milk that is being valued at 15c/litre.

Help the dairy industry invest in Jess’ future Coles. You can do this. Its easy

STOP USING MILK AS A LOSS LEADER

Who really benefits from the milk prices wars

I think the statistics tell the real story

Coles tell us its “Down Down Down campaign” saves its shoppers $450 per year.

Coles on the other hand recorded a 16.3 per cent increase in 2011-12 pre-tax earnings to $1.356 billion.

Coles CEO Ian McLeod earns $15.63 million in salary alone. Cant even imagine what his bonuses are

McLeod’s spectacular earnings are more than double that of his boss, Wesfarmers CEO Richard Goyder, who made $6.9 million last year.

Coles home label brands now account for around 51% of Coles milk volumes, up from around 25% in 1999/2000. This result has been rapidly assisted by the current $1/litre milk discounting marketing strategy

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry when they spruik the milk price wars are solely to help Australian families.

Australian dairy farming families are in Crisis

I don’t know about you but to me no-one tells a story from the heart more powerfully than Marian MacDonald. See Sad Discovery that is Good for My Green Farm Girl

My story today comes from my heart to yours. The Australian dairy industry in crisis. It is not just the domestic milk supplying states of QLD, NSW and SA that are affected. The milk processing company Lion will endeavour to offload the 15c/litre* (see footnote) T2 milk it is paying its farmers into milk processing plants in Victoria and this will put severe downward pressure on farm gate milk prices in this state as well.

Victoria is known as the dairy state and currently 70% of milk production comes from south of the border. The current farm gate milk price in Victoria is already impacting on farm and this new pricing structure for Lion suppliers I can assure you will have serious ramifications right across Australia.

How did we get in this sorry mess you ask? Let me share what Dairy Australia has said in its In Focus publication.

“The two issues putting downward pressure on prices at present are – oversupply of milk in the Eastern states and the supermarket discounting of milk“

Now it should be as clear as the nose on your face that a milk processor like Lion could get smart and correct the oversupply issue by investing in a dryer for skim milk powder production for example which would allow it to take up the excess milk for export purposes.

On the other hand we could have another ten year drought. Don’t think anyone will be suggesting the latter option.

Just so you understand why we have an oversupply of milk in NSW, SA and QLD. Dairy farmers were given clear market signals through large incentives paid by Lion to grow their milk supply businesses. Sadly Lion’s milk sales business did not have the same growth spurt

Now to the supermarket price wars. The supermarket discounting will end when they have achieved their objective of growing the home brand share of the milk market to their targets and ultimately the target is to have only home brand milk on the shelf and the strategy is working.

Supermarket’s share of Australian drinking milk sales is now around 53% and growing. Home label brands now account for around 51% of total supermarket milk volumes, up from around 25% in 1999/2000. This result has been rapidly assisted by the current $1/litre milk discounting marketing strategy

And as you can clearly see using milk as a loss leader is making them buckets of money. See “Another strong earning performance from Coles supermarket division “

How can you help?

To assist dairy farmers you can choose to purchase branded milk products not house brands. It doesn’t matter what brand as long as it is not Woolworths label or Coles label. This will support the margins of the processors and this offers the best opportunity for farmer margins.

You can also choose to purchase milk from venues other than Coles and Woolworths.

What can Coles Do?

It is absolutely critical that they stop using milk as a loss leader

So what solution will we chose?

What are we going to do Australia? Do we change our buying habits or do we lobby Coles?

I say let’s go both barrels. Love to hear what you think

Look at these beautiful creatures Surely their milk is worth more than 16c/litre

Footnote I am yet to find a farmer who has received the mooted 15c/litre most people are getting between 11 and 13c/litre. The variation is caused by the different milk fat and protein percentages on farms