Crisis in the dairy industry – a history

By Caleb Cluff
Updated May 24 2016 - 4:11pm, first published May 20 2016 - 5:00pm
Hard times: dairy cattle on a farm outside of Ballarat. Photo: Caleb Cluff.
Hard times: dairy cattle on a farm outside of Ballarat. Photo: Caleb Cluff.

With farmers destroying milk rather than accepting below-cost processor offers, selling up and sending cows to slaughter or drying them off; with feed prices driven up by the drought and mental health counsellors being sought to assist those struggling; and with supermarkets engaged in a savage price war, it’s pertinent to ask: how did the Australian dairy industry get itself to this parlous position?

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