United Dairyfarmers of Victoria conference: Retail plan voted down

A retail price point plan to ease the squeeze on the dairy sector has been voted down at the United Dairyfarmers of Victoria conference.

A retail price point plan to ease the squeeze on the dairy sector has been voted down at the United Dairyfarmers of Victoria conference today.

Spearheaded by former Woolworths chairman John Dahlsen, a group supportive of the Dahlsen Plan presented the blueprint to a vote by UDV members this morning.

South-west Victorian farmer Bruce Knowles told delegates the plan was backed by former World Trade Organisation director Gary Sampson as well as retail veteran Mr Dahlsen and deserved proper consideration.

“As an organisation, (the UDV) have been stuck in a rut for some time,” he said.

“Dairy is under pressure and the Dahlsen Plan is a positive way of providing some stability for the sector.”

Gippsland dairy farmer Ken Lawrence led the charge against the initiative and claimed the Dahlsen Plan lacked detail.

“While we’d all love 20 cents a litre extra for our milk, I don’t believe it’s workable,” he said.

In 2020, Mr Dahlsen released a 107-page report detailing how Australian milk prices were exceedingly low compared to other developed nations.

The blueprint outlines how a government-mandated levy could inject much needed price stability into the sector while having little impact on Australian consumers.

The report specifies that a 20-cent levy on every litre of milk on supermarket shelves – fresh white through to UHT and flavoured – would return 6.7 cents-a-litre to each dairy farm.

A 30-cent levy would 10 cents-a-litre to the farmgate while a 40 cent levy would have a flow-on effect of 13.3 cents-a-litre.

Meanwhile, Victorian Farmers Federation president Emma Germano gave an impassioned address to the conference, urging greater participation from primary producers in advocacy.

She remarked on the lack of younger farmers representing the sector — calling on those aged 35 or younger to stand. Only two people in the function room stood.

“I can be the best cauliflower grower, you can be the best dairy farmer,” she said.

“But when people who make decisions (ministers), it makes it really easy for them to make their own decision when they get four different views.

“That means you’ve got a licence to choose whatever the government would like the policy to be. You can’t have two per cent of the industry saying it’s representative of everyone else.”

In other UDV resolutions, electors also voted down a move to reduce the number of UDV regions from four to three in northern Victoria due to a drop in farm numbers in recent years.

However, a motion to call on the Australian Dairy Farmers board to release presidential and consultancy reports was given the green light by delegates.

South-west Victorian farmer Bernie Free successfully called for the release of reports by state dairy presidents as well as an Ernst and Young consultancy report on the restructure of the sector.

“I think it’s fair that given dairy farmers paid for those reports, they are entitled to see the contents of those reports,” Mr Free said.