‘Dairy shortages, no ifs or buts': Milk and butter prices to rise as farmers tread water
Australians have been told to brace for dairy shortages and higher milk, butter and cheese prices as four in five milk-producing farmers across the nation are now estimated to be struggling to recover from a natural disaster of some kind.
Consumers have no choice but to face rising prices for dairy products in the short and long term, said the chiefs of EastAUSMilk and Norco.
'I think the whole eastern seaboard is going to feel the shortage of milk and dairy products one way or the other,' EastAUSMilk president Joe Bradley said. 'There's no ifs or buts [about it]; it's a disaster. Prices have to rise.'
The latest NSW floods have exacerbated the struggles of dairy farmers around the country, who had already been grappling with feed, hay or water shortages, severe droughts across Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania, or who were still recovering from Cyclone Alfred.
Farmers in these states have been buying high volumes of feed and hay as they struggled with once-in-a-century drought and the driest 14 months on record. The Bureau of Meteorology has reported 'severe deficiency' of rainfall. The Victorian Farmers Federation has called for more short-term and long-term funding to prepare farmers for the next drought.
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Australia's national milk production, which has been dwindling over decades, will shrink even further. Many farmers told Bradley they would exit the dairy industry after NSW's most recent catastrophic floods.
'You've had whole farms washed away, cattle washed away. You've had houses inundated. The whole business is gone,' Bradley said.
He accused the NSW government of letting bureaucracy get in the way of calling a 'Category D' disaster, which would help farmers to get swift access to extra recovery support.
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