Woolsthorpe dairy farmer Brian McLaren has been a loyal Murray Goulburn (MG) supplier but says that loyalty depends on its opening price for the 2017-2018 milk season.
Mr McLaren has remained with MG despite its big cut in the milk prices it pays him because he believes MG’s continued presence is vital to the Australian dairy industry.
He believes MG, Australia’s largest milk processor, needs to survive its current slump in profitability because it provides demand for milk that prevents farmgate milk prices dropping even further.
But Mr McLaren said MG’s opening milk price for the next season would determine what direction he took with his long career in the dairy industry.
“It will determine whether I stay or leave and quit the industry,” he said.
Mr McLaren, who produces about 1.5 million litres of milk a year from about 700 cows, said he had been approached by dairy processors seeking to draw his milk supply away from MG.
But he told them to come and see him after June 30 when he knew MG’s opening price, he said.
Mr McLaren welcomed MG’s decision to scrap its claw-back scheme and return the claw-back money it took last year from its dairy farmer suppliers after the company’s returns slumped.
But he believed MG had brought its financial problems upon itself because it “could not see the downturn in the industry when everyone else could.”
