We are told that the Australian Dairy Industry has been deregulated as a
result of the Federal Governments Competition Policy. In fact the industry
is highly regulated and farmers are not allowed to sell their milk direct
to consumers. By making pasteurisation compulsory, the government is
forcing farmers to sell only to processors, yet the government has done
nothing to prevent the takeover of processing companies by a hand full of
foreign
operators that now control the industry along with the
retail duopoly
that exists in Australia. For a long time the Farmer co-op
Challenge
Dairy provided some stability to the market for milk, sadly they
have now gone out of business. How can a supposedly pro private enterprise Federal
Liberal Government have allowed this to happen? (written in 2006) . We are told the
pasteurisation is a public health issue, but until the late 1960's we could
still buy un-pasteurised milk in shops. I remember going to the shop with
a Billy and milk would be ladled from a drum. A herd testing program was
in place and I'm not aware of any major health problems. At the time the
ban on the sale of un-pasteurised milk was introduced the risk of passing
TB was the given as the reason, but TB has since been eradicated from the
Australian herd. Un-pasteurised milk is an entirely different product to
the white liquid that is passed of as milk today. If consumers wish to buy
un-pasteurised milk (with a suitable herd testing regime in place)
why should the government stop them? Most dairy farmers
drink their own milk un-pasteurised. This is a consumer rights
issue. The government allows us to buy cigarettes and fatty fast
foods, both likely to kill us, why not allow the consumer to make
up their own mind up about
un-pasteurised milk? There are suggestions
that pasteurising kills the enzymes that are required to digest milk so it
is quite possible that the process
actually contributes to health
problems! If farmers were allowed to sell direct to consumers
then a real free market would exist and small farmers could make a reasonable
living. The claim was that deregulation would result in cheaper milk for
consumers, this has not happened. The processors and retailers are making
a greater percentage. The profit of processors is returned to their
foreign owners worsening our national debt, I some times wonder who's side
our government is on! Slow Food Australia is currently running a petition
supporting the use of raw milk in cheese,
click here to support the petition. There are a few locally owned dairy
companies that form part of a growing
agritourism sector in WA, by supporting them you are support local communities and avoid your
money being returned as profits to foreign companies. Once the mining boom
ends we are going to need businesses like these to survive.
These comments are made as an interested observer of what has happened
to family farms and communities where I live in the South West of WA, as a
result of the so called dairy deregulation. I'd welcome someone in authority to explain
any error in my
logic. If what I've written makes sense to you, then you might be
interested in the following pages Farmers Markets
, Organic Farming,
Permaculture
, Sustainable
Living and Slow
Food .
If you agree with the ideas expressed here, please feel free to link to
any of these pages from your website this way you are helping to
spread the concept of stability through diversity! If your website is relevant to the
content of this site I'll happily provide a reciprocal link.
Barry
Green, Managing Director, Western Tourist Radio
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