By LAWRENCE SPRINGBORG
THE health and welfare of our society is advantaged every day by the efforts of others- sometimes to the point of being taken for granted.
During last week’s parliamentary sitting, more than 200 people gathered out the front of Parliament House to lend their voices to a fair go for dairy farmers.
Every now and then, you hear something that leaves an indelible memory etched into your psyche. For me that happened that day.
A speaker came to the microphone and listed the essential professions in our community. The professions we need every week or month and then concluded with the point, “but everyone needs a farmer at least three times a day”.
Milk is an essential; almost everyone uses it in our community, and for families it is even more essential. It is ludicrous that we think nothing of paying more for a litre of water, than a litre of milk. Something we can source for virtually nothing through a tap. Sourced from cows, milked by farmers at 4am, it is packed full of protein, essential nutrients and minerals such as calcium.
There is something wrong in a society when we value things in such a way. Then to top it off, we have the predatory pricing practices of major supermarket chains that run expensive advertising campaigns saying they are the farmers’ friends. And then place branded milk products out of the view or reach of customers so that they can use their unbranded product as a cheap price leader to get customer throughput.
They keep the prices down for processors, who then are forced to pay the farmers less, often below the price of production. Yet these unconscionable practices see their multi-billion dollar profits escalate at the cost of farmers who can no longer afford to produce the food we enjoy.
The Granite-belt produces 14 per cent of Australia’s apples and only recently when visiting an apple orchard I was given another insight into these so-called farmer friendly practices of the big chains. I was told by the orchardist that when the large chain did an apple promotion, the cost was not borne by the promoter supermarket chain, it was borne by the grower, from the already fine margins paid to the grower.
While we may, by and large feel powerless, there is one thing we can all do to show our support for farmers. We can buy branded milk and for that matter other Australian made products that support farmers. We can also say to the major supermarket chains, “actions speak louder than words, don’t just say that you are farmer friendly, start acting like you are“.
