MORE than a hundred dairy farmers have left the farm for a couple of hours to express their concerns over the sustainability of their industry at a public forum run by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission in Taree.
As part of its inquiry into competitiveness, trading practices and the dairy supply chain, the ACCC is running public forums around the country.
At Taree on the Mid North Coast of NSW, farmers are currently speaking with commissioners in a closed meeting.
ACCC agriculture commissioner Mick Keogh said the meeting had to be moved to a larger room, with the “enthusiasm of the dairy community for this process perhaps underestimated.”
The Taree meeting is the second, with yesterday’s Toowoomba, Queensland, meeting attracting around 100, also far more than the 30-odd originally expected.
Farmers entering the Taree meeting said unfair contracts, the devastation $1-a-litre retail milk had leveled on their industry and the power processors and retailers wielded over farmgate prices were the hot topics they planned to raise.
Dairy industry advocate groups around the country have urged producers to take part in the forums, saying the ACCC had been granted significant powers with this investigation and it has the potential to deliver real change.