Waleed Aly is renowned for his poignant opinion pieces on The Project, and last night he delivered what he called “the greatest call to arms I have ever made”.
“Dairy farmers are begging us to eat more locally produced cheese,” Waleed told to the Tuesday night audience, explaining that our dairy farmers are suffering from an inherently unfair relationship with the country’s two largest dairy companies, Murray Goulburn and Fonterra.
Over the past month, Waleed says farmgate milk prices have been drastically slashed, meaning many local milk farmers are staring down bankruptcy. The changes mean that milk farmers are now paid 37 cents for each litre which costs them 38 cents to make.
But the blows don't stop there, and "the situation for our farmers is actually much, much worse than they first expected". Alarmingly, the big milk companies have said their price changes are retrospective, meaning the farmers must cough up the money they've made over the last financial year.
"Because our farmers have been paid $5.60 all financial year, Murray Goulburn and Fonterra are essentially claiming that the farmers were overpaid from July last year until the price cuts three weeks ago," the father-of-two said.
"Now, the farmers suddenly owe Murray Goulburn and Fonterra massive debts. The average debt reportedly owed to Murray Goulburn by a dairy farmer is $120,000."
It's a dire issue which is being dodged by the pollies, the TV host pointed out scathingly, frustrated by the topic being dodged simply because we're in the middle of an election campaign. While the proposition of a "milk levy of 50 cents a litre" at a time like this might seem unattractive, Waleed says one may be necessary if we want to save our hardworking Australian farmers.
"That levy would cost Aussie families less than a dollar a week, and it could save lives and potentially an entire industry," he said, adding: "I don't believe Australians... would have the attitude that there's no point buying the cow when you can get the milk for free."
Our greatest opportunity, however, is simple: To eat more Australian dairy products.
"Dairy farmers are begging us to eat more locally produced cheese," Waleed told the audience. "And the good news is, thanks to data released last week by the bureau of statistics, nine out of 10 of us aren't eating enough dairy produce to meet the dietary guidelines ... so chow down."
"Farmers have told us that the best way to lend them a hand is to pay an extra few cents for Australian-produced, brand name milk. It really will help our farmers stay afloat."
You heard him, people! Go out and buy a massive cheese platter, pronto. (It's not like you need any more encouragement.)
Top Comments
I agree we need to support the farmers but none of these stories are giving us easy instructions on how to help. My family drinks about 12 litres of milk a week and I usually buy the $2 for 2 litre bottles. I can afford to spend a bit more but looking today the other options were more than double the price and I don't even know which to buy. Some comments I am reading say even if I spend over $4 for 2 litres the farmers won't get any more. Can someone make it easy for people like myself to do the right thing?
Why are we being encouraged to buy brand name milk? Doesn't store brand milk come from our farmers? And if store brand does come from our farmers, won't we be hurting them in the long run if we boycott store brand? Won't they lose their contracts when demand for store brand milk drops off?
Store brand milk comes from whoever can supply it the cheapest today.
It's not Coles or Woolies that take the hit to get the price down, it's usually the producer who has absolutely no say in the matter. Which is exactly what is happening here.
What use is a contract when you have to pay the buyer to take it from you?!?
I know its the farmers that get shafted, not the supermarket chains, I didn't say otherwise. The article states to buy branded milk to get Australian produced milk. Which has me questioning where our milk comes from. And there must be contracts in place for store brand milk, I dont believe there are milk markets like fruit markets.