Dairy farmer's milk price plea to shoppers

Their livelihoods depend on it.

The Murray Goulburn suppliers are facing a predicted price cut when the 2016-17 financial year prices are released at the end of June, after the company’s forecast profits took a hit. 

But they say the industry’s plight runs much deeper than that.

The real trouble for every dairy farmer lies in the impact $1 a litre milk has on their paycheck. 

The Neilson’s have joined a nationwide call to arms urging shoppers to buy branded dairy products owned by an Australian milk processing company and leave Coles and Woolworths branded dairy products on the shelf.

They say showing the supermarket giants that shoppers are happy to pay more for dairy products is the only way to get rid of $1 a litre milk and put more money in farmers’ pockets. 

“Buy branded dairy products and show the supermarkets you are happy to pay more,” Mrs Neilson said.

“People have been showing their support and we need them to keep it up.

“People need to eat more dairy products.”

The Neilson’s entered the dairy industry just over a year ago and milk 50 cows on a property they lease at Bandon Grove.

They took out a loan to start the business and spent $200,000 to setting themselves up with equipment and a small herd.

They joined Murray Goulburn as the company was closing its books and said the farmer-owned co-operative’s recent actions showed it was putting farmer’s first. 

“The company took out a loan and went into debt to pay us a fair price – a price they said they’d pay this financial year,” Mrs Neilson said. “The price will go down so the company can get that money back, it has to go down.”

Mr Neilson said some Victorian farmers had been more affected than others, and that was unfortunate, but Murray Goulburn wasn’t at fault and could not control the export market.

“Deregulating the market in Europe meant Europe was putting all this cheap product into China and the big forecast Murray Goulburn had for its adult milk sales crashed,” he said. 

The couple could cope with a one or two cent drop per kilogram of milk, which would leave them around $600 out of pocket every month. They would have to make cut backs if the price drop was five or 10 cents. 

Mr Neilson said Coles plan to launch a new milk brand and give 20 cents a litre back to farmers was a ploy to get shoppers to buy the product. He said each farmer would not get much out of it as most of their milk went into branded products.