Tableland dairy farmers ‘forgotten victims’ of drought

WHILE the nation’s heart goes out to drought stricken landholders in inland New South Wales and southwest Queensland, North Queensland dairy farmers are fighting a battle of their own.

THE forgotten people of the eastern seaboard drought are the dairy farmers of the Atherton Tableland.

While the nation’s heart goes out to drought stricken landholders in inland New South Wales and Queensland, Tableland dairy farmers battle on against drought-induced falls in milk production and galloping increases in the costs of stockfeed and other basic inputs like fuel and fertiliser. The bitter irony is that the Tableland farmers live and ply their trade in the wettest part of Australia.

Max Neal milks dairy cows at Butchers Creek in the foothills of Mt Bartle Frere, Queensland’s highest mountain. His milk production has halved due to dry conditions. His district normally would receive 4831mm of rain a year. August is always a ‘dry’ month but he can usually expect 100mm-plus of rain. During the last August just passed, he measured 6mm.

“We had big rain before that going back to Christmas. It’s wicked now. This time of year we should be having rain,” he said.

“I’m losing out on milk production now. That knocks a big hole in your pocket and at the same time things like electricity, fuel and stock feed are going up.”

The drought on the Atherton Tableland has seen Max Neal's milk production drop by 50 per cent. Photo: John Andersen

Mr Neal said the area was not drought declared and that there were no government benefits farmers could access.

“If we don’t get rain in spring it’s going to be hard to get through to the summer rain,” he said.

Millaa Millaa dairy farmer James Geraghty is a State Councillor on the Queensland Dairy Farmer’s Organisation Ltd. He said 2016 and 2017 were good years for the Tableland. This year was shaping up as another good one for a local industry that is fighting marketing arrangements set up by supermarket chains as well as interstate competition.

“I live in a farming area that gets 3.5 metres of rain a year. This year we had 3.1 metres and then it stopped. We had 3mm in August. That’s not enough to lay the dust,” Mr Geraghty said.

He said the area technically was not in drought and had no chance of receiving drought assistance from the government.

“We only came out of drought declaration in March this year. We are back in a dry spot. There is no chance of being drought declared,” he said.

Dairy industry leader James Geraghty from Millaa Millaa.

In the meantime, he said farmers were paying exorbitant prices for feed for their cows. He said cotton seed was priced at $300 to $350 a tonne early in the year. And then a massive jump in demand from drought-hit farmers in the three eastern states drove the price up to $680 a tonne. On top of this is $118 a tonne in freight. These costs are rising while milk production is falling due to the dry conditions.

“We feed cotton seed to our cows for at least seven months of the year. We are more concerned now about the condition of our cows than we are about milk production. The cows look after us and we look after them,” he said.

“This is a very serious position right now for us,” he said.

Mr Geraghty said the drought in Central and southern Queensland was forcing people out of the dairy industry.

“There’s been 15 farms go in the Central and Southern districts over the last three months. They just don’t have grass for their cows,” he said.

Originally published as Tableland dairy farmers ‘forgotten victims’ of drought