May 19, 2004

Australian Dairy Farmers Angry At Milk Price Cut

One of the Australian milk industry's major buyers has confirmed it will drop the price it pays dairy farmers for their milk in July.

National Foods will cut its buying price by between half a cent and a cent a litre in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland.

Dairy farmers are angry at the move claiming a strong world market should actually mean an increase in prices.

Ian Greenshields from National Foods says at this stage the decrease is only for July and will be reassessed after then.

"Prices are coming down and are likely to come down because the expectation by the exporters, the milk commodity exporters, is the world commodity price which sets the foundational base for the Australian domestic price that is going to be coming off record highs as measured in US dollars," he said.