South Australian drought evaporates national milk pool

Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton have been invited to tour South Australia’s drought-hit dairy region.

For seven decades, Peter Whitford from Myponga has been dairy farming come rain, hail or shine.

The problem is there’s plenty of shine and little rain this season in his usually green patch of South Australia – and the costs of buying in fodder are mounting.

“I’ve never seen it this dry in 70-plus years. I remember the lead-up to Ash Wednesday in 1982 and 83, it was dry then. Also the 2000s drought. There were at least patches of rain here and there whereas this time around, there’s been hardly a day of rain. The dry conditions over the past year or so beats them all.”

The drought has cut South Australia’s milk pool for several consecutive months, with its February 2025 output down more than 6 per cent, from 37.3 million litres in February 2024 to 35.1m litres in the latest reported month.

The national milk pool has also taken a cut as a result, down from 601m litres in February 2024 to 572m litres in February 2025 – a nationwide cut of 4.8 per cent.

Feeding hay to his stock this week, Mr Whitford told The Weekly Times that the cost per round bale was at least $200 around the Fleurieu Peninsula, where he’s operated a farm since the mid 1950s.

“I know a dairy farmer that spent at least $70,000 buying hay recently,” he said. “I know another farmer who’s spending $25,000 a month for power to irrigate.

“We’re talking huge input costs. We supply Fleurieu Milk and they’ve been paying reasonable prices but I wouldn’t want to be some farmers out there supplying some of these other processors. You need a reasonable price at the moment to cover your costs.”

Peter Whitford at his Myponga farm. Picture: Tim Joy

South Australian Dairyfarmers Association president Robert Brokenshire urged Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton to visit the drought-hit region, which is only 65km from central Adelaide.

“The Prime Minister was at the Queensland floods aftermath pretty quick and so was the Opposition Leader,” he said.

“Droughts don’t make as many headlines but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t find time in their schedule to meet with farmers hit by the drought and offer some assistance.

Australian Dairy Farmers president Ben Bennett echoed Mr Brokenshire, calling for the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader to tour drought-hit dairy farms.

“They’ve got time on their hands over the next month to travel around Australia – how about meeting with some Australians doing it tough?”