Industry:
Cheap milk comes at high price in Aust
by Joanne Marshall
AUSTRALIAN DAIRY DEREGULATION - A fair and honest inquiry needs to be held to determine not
only the effects on farmers and their communities and processors and supermarkets, but also the broader
environmental costs or benefits of deregulation including the effects on carbon emissions, nutrient transfers,
the use of irrigation water, the effect on environmental flows of rivers and the transport consequences for
their infrastructure and the use of fossil fuel in the production and transport of the feedstuffs and milk
across the nation. Consumers have the right to expect their food to be produced in an environmentally
responsible and sustainable fashion. - Prof Jim Scott
Once upon a time in Australia a dairy farmer was a pastoral farmer, a land owner and a stock man who
knew his animals and who could make a good living off 120 cows.
Bessie and her mates could stroll casually from the dairy to the nearby lush pastures. The costs of
harvesting supplementary feed were low and problems with the disposal of effluent were all but unheard of.
| Professor Jim Scott lobbied long and hard against deregulation. He and his students wrote letter after
letter to Australian politicians pointing out that deregulation would be bad news for the dairy industry.
Of the 680 politicians they wrote to, 1% agreed, 10% wrote back that they had referred the letter on and
the other 89% ignored him. Professor Jim Scott lobbied long and hard against deregulation. He and his students wrote letter after
letter to Australian politicians pointing out that deregulation would be bad news for the dairy industry.
Of the 680 politicians they wrote to, 1% agreed, 10% wrote back that they had referred the letter on and
the other 89% ignored him.
As part of Dr Scott’s campaign he completed a thesis which proposed a more sustainable system than
he believed would result from deregulation.
“If we go away from pasture feeding animals it doesn’t make sense. It’s not as if we are down to our last
hectare.”
Long term consequences
Dr Scott says that the prospect of huge, mechanised farms with effluent disposal problems is one of the
unintended consequences of dairy deregulation.
“Consumers have never been asked whether they are prepared to accept these environmental
consequences of having cheaper milk.
“What our politicians have unwittingly done is to create a system where consumers do not pay for the
environmental costs of their food production, thus creating long-term problems for our society.”
Dr Scott said that by “pushing farmers to an unsustainable brink, society is
forcing them to adopt an unsustainable production system which won’t provide funds to look after the
land
|
As part of Dr Scott’s campaign he completed a thesis which proposed a more sustainable system than
he believed would result from deregulation.
“If we go away from pasture feeding animals it doesn’t make sense. It’s not as if we are down to our last
hectare.”
Since then deregulation has brought changes which Professor Jim Scott, of the University of New
England, says are having devastating effects on rural communities and the environment.
It’s become harder for farmers to make a living and this has meant that herd sizes are increasing. As
herd numbers have ballooned to several hundred, and even thousands, farmers have found that there just
isn’t enough pasture for the cows within walking distance.
The answer to this has been to move to feedlot dairies - which leads to “battery” cow farming. This
brings a new problem - that of getting rid of effluent and odour, plus the need to harvest and transport grain
and silage.
And milk is now being produced in different areas. The coastal areas which traditionally have grown
feed mostly from rainfall are being deserted for the more reliable irrigation areas such as those in Victoria
and southern NSW.
This also means that the farms are further away from the consumer and the milk is transported greater
distances, using fossil fuels and wearing out roads that were never intended to carry milk tankers day in
and day out.
“Apart from using our precious irrigation water inefficiently, this has flow-on effects in other areas.
“Centres which have traditionally produced and processed drinking milk close to large concentrations
of consumers are finding it harder to compete with the new mega dairies and many operations have
closed.”
This too is having an impact on those regions - fewer jobs and less industry.
The buck has nearly gone a full circle and it is the governments responsible for dairy deregulation that
are now facing pressure to look after these communities.
Their way of doing this is with a “transition support package” of $AUS1.9 billion. The reason farmers
need such a package is because their quotas, which they paid hundreds of thousands for, are now worthless.
This assistance loan was promoted as being funded by the consumer with an 11c/litre surcharge.
“When some bottle sizes of milk are already cheaper than the equivalent size of bottled water it’s hard
to see how consumers will win.
“Where is the sense in a 600ml bottle of milk costing $1 and the same quantity of bottled water costing
$1.50? Have consumers gone mad?”
Dr Scott also points out that “cows have dropped from $1500 to $900 per head, dairy equipment is
worth virtually nothing and the banks are reassessing farmers’ loans.”
The family farm
Dr Scott also believes that the family farm is under pressure from these mega dairies.
Before deregulation Australian farmers and their families were milking, on average, about 120 cows a
day. This number is no longer considered economic by many and the continual push is for more cows per
dairy. But these large-scale dairies are beyond the capital capability of most farmers and it is these farmers
who Dr Scott believes will eventually become the employees of the corporations who can afford such
outlay.
Pollution
On the subject of pollution Dr Scott also has strong views. He says that the larger feedlot dairies have
tremendous environmental problems.
“It’s happening world-wide - but that doesn’t make it right.
“A four-wheel-drive animal is still better than a four-wheel drive vehicle when it comes to distributing
faeces and urine back to the pastures.”
“I don’t argue at all, the point that we need equitable prices across Australia for our dairy farmers.”
But when the companies are carting milk (which is 90% water) from irrigation areas using imported
tankers (costing $500,000 each) and using fossil fuels to do it, there must be a better way, Dr Scott said.
Not just for the dairy farmers but a better way for the dairy cows who no longer have a natural diet, for
the environment and for the consumer.
Jim Scott is associate professor of agronomy and soil science at the University of New England.
