WESTVIC Dairy is to bring forward its ‘Tactics for Tight Times’ south-west workshops to this month to help farmers hit hard by Murray Goulburn’s big drop in its milk price.
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WestVic Dairy regional manager Lindsay Ferguson said the workshops would provide information to farmers to help them with the financial decisions they had to make in response to the milk price cut and the dry season.
Mr Ferguson said the workshops had originally been planned for the new financial year but had been brought forward to later this month in response to MG’s price cut and the dry conditions.
He said the workshops would provide information to help farmers with feed budgeting and an update on the milk season.
The content of the workshops would be developed after consulting with Agriculture Victoria, leading regional farmers, the United Dairyfarmers of Victoria (UDV), the WestVic Dairy board and other stakeholders, Mr Ferguson said.
WestVic Dairy is funded by Dairy Australia which said the rollout and use of its DairyBase web-based program would be ramped up to help dairy farmers revise their budgets for 2015-2016 and develop budgets for 2016-2017.
DA said Regional Development Programs such as WestVic Dairy would not only deliver support services but also put farmers in touch with other farming services.
State Agriculture Minister Jaala Pulford is to convene a meeting of Victoria’s dairy industry leaders on Thursday to discuss MG’s shock milk price cut.
Ms Pulford said the meeting would include representatives from the Victorian Farmers Federation, UDV, MG, Fonterra, Warrnambool Cheese and Butter, Bega Cheese, Burra Foods, DA, the Gardiner Foundation and the Victorian Agricultural Advisory Council
The meeting will address how the welfare of farmers and regional communities can be supported by proactive measures led by industry.
South-west based Vet Group dairy consultant Chris Hibburt said he expected some MG suppliers would want to switch their supply to other dairy processors but urged farmers to make informed business decisions and not ones based on emotion.
He said dairy farmers needed to focus on three things during the current tough times; feed, finance and friends.
Dr Hibburt said MG’s big price cut highlighted the likely ongoing volatility of the world dairy industry.
Dairy farmers could not expect to make a profit every year and would occasionally need financial back up to pay their feed bills, he said.
