Australian Government Projects 80% Drop In Dairy Farm Incomes This FY

[hatrack]

THIS was to be the year Ron Paynter hit pay dirt after 13 years building up his dairy farm at Ellinbank, in Victoria's Gippsland.
But the federal Government commodity forecaster predicted yesterday that dairy farm incomes would plummet 80 per cent nationally this financial year - thanks to the drought. "The last 13 years have been a real struggle to try to build the farm up to a good economic size," Mr Paynter said. "This year was the year we would have finally got there. It has been a huge kick in the guts."

After taking over the family farm in 1993, Mr Paynter set out to increase the herd from 120 cows to a more profitable 350 and increase his land holdings from 80ha to 128ha. "We have increased the scale of the property," he said. "We increased the intensity of the work we do on it and tried to work very hard on the productivity side and making sure we feed animals as economically as we can." Mr Paynter is now feeding his cows on brought-in feed that has doubled in price.

The Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics forecast yesterday that milk production would fall about 10 per cent, due to cuts in water allocation, increases in fodder costs and a lower milk price.

"We are expecting to see average income per farm come back from around $86,000 down to under $18,000 per farm which is a drop of about 80 per cent," said John Hogan, ABARE's manager of crops, livestock and food industry section. Overall farm incomes are expected to plunge to their lowest levels in 30 years.

EDIT

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21338559-2702,00.html

[kestrel91316]

1. That's ok. Instead of milk, children can drink water in OZ.

Oh, wait.

Um, maybe salt water?