THE Farmer Power group has called a meeting for Wednesday as it seeks to ramp up protest against the historically large milk price cuts imposed on dairy farmers in the past two weeks.
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Farmer Power president Chris Gleeson, of Crossley, said anger by farmers over the price cuts by Murray Goulburn (MG) and Fonterra were just “the tip of the iceberg” of unrest with the dairy industry that was “ready to explode.”
Farmer Power, which formed in 2013 after more than 600 dairy farmers held a 'crisis meeting' at Noorat during a time of low milk prices and dry seasonal conditions, said the time and place for Wednesday’s meeting would be announced in the next few days.
The breakaway group met on Friday with United Dairyfarmers of Victoria president Adam Jenkins but failed to get support from the long-established dairy advocacy group for its call for a federal government review of the dairy industry.
The national dairy farmer advocacy group, Australian Dairy Farmers, was also invited to attend the meeting in Camperdown but did not take part.
Mr Gleeson said Farmer Power wanted federal agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce to hold an independent review of the dairy industry to determine how dairy farmers could gain better outcomes.
The group realised there was only a small window of opportunity for the government call the review before it went into caretaker mode for the coming federal election but the government would gain kudos for doing so, Mr Gleeson said.
He also called for the Australian Securities and Investments Commission to investigate the performance of MG “to find out what mistakes were made” that led to its decision last week to cut its milk price by up to 20 per cent.
Mr Gleeson said the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission should also investigate the validity of the current payment methods by processors to dairy farmers.
He said under the current payment arrangements, dairy farmers will have to pay back a portion of the milk cheques they have already received because of the milk price cuts.
Mr Gleeson also called for the current MG board to be sacked and an administrator appointed to manage the cooperative’s affairs.
“We need to get it managed properly,” he said.
Former UDV president Doug Chant, of Warrion, was at Friday’s meeting with Mr Jenkins and backed Mr Gleeson’s calls.
Mr Chant said he supported Farmer Power because other farmer advocacy groups had been “losing their voice.”
