THE south-west’s dairy industry has been urged to start a “serious conversation” about rationalising milk collection.
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Great South Coast (GSC) Group chairman Cr Colin Ryan has called on the industry to collectively consider how milk collection could be streamlined, lessening the impact on regional roads and cutting costs to farmers.
“We have a situation now where there are more than a dozen processing plants in our region, all crossing over one another,” Cr Ryan said.
“For example, there is a small road just north of Warrnambool where there are five dairy farms being serviced for four companies.
“This issue just keeps coming up and I think it’s time we all started to have a serious conversation about what could be done,” he said.
Cr Ryan said the Great South Coast area was one of Australia’s most important dairy regions, producing more than a quarter of the nation’s milk.
It also had some of the worst roads in the state, he said.
“Some sensible planning and discussion around rationalising milk collection could result in fewer trucks on the roads, lower costs to factories and, perhaps most importantly, lower costs to our farmers.”
Cr Ryan said he had started some informal talks with milk processors, all of whom would be invited to a round table discussion in the near future.
He said he had no doubt that milk processors would like to cooperate on milk collection to reduce their costs.
“I understand that there are some issues that could make rationalisation difficult – things like the need to ensure consistent quality and so on, but to my mind, it’s worth having the conversation,” he said.
“But there is some interest in this and there is already a degree of collaboration happening in the industry that we could build on.
“It’s certainly worth posing the question,” Cr Ryan said.
He said he had raised the issue not in his role as Moyne mayor but because of wider regional concerns.
United Dairyfarmers of Victoria (UDV) president Adam Jenkins, of South Purrumbete near Cobden, welcomed the move by the GSC Group.
“It’s something the industry has been working on,” Mr Jenkins said.
He said there were some issues about ensuring quality in sharing milk collection but expected they could be addressed with appropriate standards.
He understood milk processors shared the collection of milk in northern Victoria and lessons could be taken from that experience.
“Having three different tankers on the same road does not make much sense,” Mr Jenkins said.
UDV Wannon branch president Craig Dettling, of Macarthur, also backed the idea.
“Anything that can put more money in farmers’ pockets and reduce road damage will be good,” Mr Dettling said.
He understood differences in the milk quality standards of various dairy processors had posed problems for earlier efforts to get cooperation between processors on milk collection.
The Murray Goulburn and Fonterra dairy companies were asked to comment on Cr Ryan’s call but had not responded by The Standard’s deadline.