Since 2012, over a third of Australia’s 6200 dairy farmers have left the industry. Clive Phillips from Curtin University Sustainability Policy Institute led a research project speaking to more than 140 dairy farmers, which raises hard questions for the dairy industry and its future in Australia.
Let’s set the scene. It is 4am, and the dairy farmer’s day begins. Our dairy farmer fetches his cows from the fields and into the milking shed. After cleaning their udders, milking machines are attached and, in groups of 20, the herd is milked and then returned to the paddock. Since this farmer expanded his herd to 200 cows, this process takes two hours and is repeated at 3pm.
In between, he is preparing and distributing feed, looking after calves, fertilising fields, organising vet visits, and a host of other jobs that make up the life of a dairy farmer. Our farmer has been doing this every day of the year for 40 years and unsurprisingly is tiring of the routine. It is a different world to when he started. Back then he needed 50 cows to make a living, now he needs at least 200 to make a profit.
The future of the farm weighs heavily on him as he gets older and his children are not interested in taking it on. His mental health has suffered and his marriage ended under the strain. Finding help for the farm is difficult and costs for all the inputs keep rising but the price he gets for his milk is often low.
He cannot get anyone to help him and his lonely existence on the farm is getting him down. The price he gets for his milk from the supermarket chain he supplies to is often low, but costs are constantly rising, especially fertilizers for his fields, and most of his other costs - feed, veterinary medicines and people to help him - have just continued to go up and up.
Bleak reality
This picture is not uncommon in dairy farming. Since 2012, over a third of Australia’s 6200 dairy farmers have left the sector, forced out by the pressures of the industry transitioning from being based on family farms to big industrial units.
Overseas competition is also growing. The last farm I visited in China had 30,000 cows, housed permanently in six barns and milked by robots. Our dairy farmers cannot rely on export of milk products overseas to sustain their market.
Even though Australians are traditionally big milk drinkers, over the last decade liquid milk consumption has been declining. At the same time sales of plant-based milks have increased rapidly and producing cows’ milk by a factory process called precision fermentation threatens to do away with dairy farms altogether.
To evaluate the challenges Australia’s dairy farms face and to see if these were encouraging them to look at other types of farming, we interviewed 147 dairy farmers across Australia, with most in Victoria, the key state for Australian dairy farming. Most said they faced major challenges, especially rising costs, but also the risk of bushfires and floods.
Many (69 per cent) said that the challenges had affected their mental health or that of their families, often exacerbated by the isolation and reluctance to seek help.
Farmers reported major stress caused by financial insecurity, with one respondent saying, “I am on medication all the time, my mental health has declined and (I) will be (on medication) for the rest of my life”. Others reported marriage stress due to the financial pressures.
More than half our farmers were considering transitioning to other agricultural enterprises, principally beef, arable cropping or horticulture. However, they recognised a need for technical advice and financial assistance in making the transition.
Some were reluctant to leave dairying because their family had been in the business for several generations, but often the farmers, who were typically in their fifties and sixties, did not have anyone in their family to succeed them. Not knowing what the future holds worried them.
Unclear future
What does the future hold for our dairy industry?
As well as the more immediate challenges identified by our dairy farmers, the industry faces major concerns about its contribution to climate change and links to human diseases, particularly heart disease and diabetes. Will it go the way of the telephone operator or telegraph boy and disappear altogether?
There are now many alternatives on the market, especially almond, oat and soya milks, and soft drinks to which manufacturers are adding worryingly high amounts of sugar and caffeine.
Our dairy farmers are worried about their future, but they need help to make the transition to more sustainable forms of farming.
Our government has a responsibility for food security, and it gives lots of money to the peak bodies for the major agricultural industries, such as Dairy Australia and Meat and Livestock Australia. However, it doesn’t have that overview of the different industries that could encourage and assist farmers to move into producing foods that are likely to be more popular in the future.
The alarm bell rings again, and this time it’s not to get our dairy farmer out of his bed, it’s to awaken an industry to create a more sustainable future for all those hard-working farmers like we interviewed.
