October 16, 2006
Australian dairy group calls for grain imports and transparency
Australian dairies are calling on the Federal Government to expedite applications to import feed grain due to the drought's impact on grain supplies.
Australian Dairy Farmers president Allan Burgess urged Biosecurity Australia to accelerate the processing of import applications to ensure Australian dairy farmers' access to feed grain at fair prices.
The country is facing escalating grain prices at a time of the worst drought in a century.
Burgess said it was also crucial that authorities' transactions concerning current grain stores were transparent.
Grain is a component of the diet of a dairy cow, and during drought feed grain takes up an even greater part of their diet, he said.
The dairy sector was not the only one to be worried about grain prices.
The Livestock Feed Grain Users Group, whose members include those from the pork, beef and poultry industry, met officials from the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF), the Australian Bureau of A g r i c u l t u r a l a n d Resource Economics (ABARE) and Biosecurity Australia last week to discuss feed availability issues and import requirements.
Without a clear idea of available stocks, the market for feed grains would not work effectively, and domestic prices could be well above import prices, as happened in the last drought, Burgess said.