Gympie region dairy farmers exodus, but survivors are optimistic

While big dairy farms such as Cochranes in the Mary Valley and Wilsons at Calico Ck have joined the exodus from the industry, those who remain say they are hopeful. Here’s why.

Two of the Gympie region’s most long-term dairy farming families have joined the hundreds who have gone before them and recently left the industry.

Calico Creek’s Martin Wilson, and the Mary Valley’s Cochrane family recently sold their herds, Mr Wilson telling the ABC that rising costs and increasing problems finding staff had helped make the decision.

It continues the exodus of dairy farmers across the Gympie region and Queensland, after the industry struggled under the thumb of flat milk pricing for two decades.

But another long-term dairy farmer, Dairy Farmers Milk Co-Operative chairman and Sexton producer Andrew Burnett, is optimistic about the future.

“Those that have ridden the storm will now do well,” he said on Thursday.

“I think now we’ve got a number of good years ahead of us.”

Mr Burnett, who is a third generation dairy farmer at Tulong in Sexton, said a national milk shortage had driven prices skyward.

“It’s like a football team that doesn’t win a premiership for 30 years.”

But for farmers like Mr Wilson, it is “prime time to get out”.

“The prices that we’re getting for our milk aren’t reflecting the increases that we’re getting as far as fertiliser, fuel, wages and costs,” he told the ABC.

Speculation remains on whether the industry will survive the next decade with an undersupply of labour.

Mr Burnett said this was not just a problem in dairying, but across all industries, particularly due to Covid.

But, with society adjusting to living with the virus, Mr Burnett said promoting farmhand work to backpackers and those wanting to get involved in agriculture was the best solution.

The fate of the Gympie region’s dairy industry will be clearer in July 2022, when farmers will decide whether or not to sign up to new milk contracts.