With today marking World Milk Day, the Queensland Farmers’ Federation (QFF) and peak advocacy organisation for dairy eastAUSmilk are encouraging consumers to support dairy farmers and buy locally produced dairy products.
World Milk Day has been celebrated on 1 June every year since 2001 to recognise the importance of milk as a global food and to raise awareness of the dairy industry.
Established by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, the day also coincides with the date processors across the country release milk prices to their farmers for the coming year.
Queensland’s dairy industry produced 299 million litres of milk during the 2021-22 year, with Queensland home to more than 150,000 milking cows on approximately 430 farms.
QFF CEO Jo Sheppard said dairy farmers continue to face many challenges while also producing arguably some of the best dairy products in the world from a health, sustainability and animal welfare perspective.
“Our dairy farmers continue to produce premium products while facing uncertainties with disparity in market bargaining power, price transparency issues, workforce shortages, disruptions to supply chains and exposure to volatile global markets,” said Jo Sheppard.
“At the same time, dairy farmers are being squeezed at the farm gate in spite of the many consumers indicating they would be prepared to pay more for locally produced milk.”
The price consumers pay for milk is determined by the dairy processors who govern prices through their milk supply agreements.
Dairy farmers in Queensland and northern New South Wales were this week caught off guard when milk processor Lactalis announced a 5c/L drop in milk price.
eastAUSmilk CEO Eric Danzi said that while a few cents here and there may not seem like a lot, for the dairy farmer, just a few extra cents up or down will make an enormous difference to their bottom line.
“Dairy farmers work day in and day out to produce the finest dairy products for us all to enjoy while also continually looking at on-farm efficiency measures and technological innovations to ensure they can continue to achieve the best possible environment outcomes and animal welfare standards,” Mr Danzi said.
“It’s never been more important to value, support and celebrate local farmers to do what they do best which is to produce some of the world’s best dairy products.”
Jo Sheppard said a fair, transparent and viable dairy industry should be important to all Australians, not only for their health and wellbeing, but also for the economy and the social fabric provided by Queensland’s agriculture sector as a whole.
“This World Milk Day, we ask that people proactively support local dairy farmers by voting with their wallets and purchasing locally produced milk and dairy products, calling on their local retailers to have local milk on their shelves, and give the power back to our world class farmers,” Jo Sheppard said.
“For most of us, dairy has played an integral role in overall health and wellbeing since we were very young, let’s ensure that generations to come can enjoy the same.”
-ENDS-
Media contact:
Anna Jones
Corporate Partnerships and Communications Manager, QFF
E: partnerships@qff.org.au
M: 0481 395 623