QUEENSLAND dairy farmers have taken their fight for a sustainable milk price to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.
The 44 suppliers from the southern Queensland Progressive Dairies' Collective Bargaining Group said it was so "disgusted" with the price offered by processor National Foods and its unwillingness to negotiate that it had no option but to go to the national watchdog.
Progressive Dairies' chairman Shane Paulger, who farms at Kenilworth in the Sunshine Coast hinterland, said National Foods offered to pay an average of 42c/litre for the 54 million litres produced by the 44 suppliers from the group.
He said this price, which was broken down into 46.19c/litre for 72 per cent of the milk (tier one) and 30c/litre for 28 per cent of the milk (tier two), was more than 10c/litre below the standard Queensland cost of production.
With only two milk processors in Queensland, the group felt it had little choice but to approach the ACCC.
"They have us in a corner (at) this stage, we don't have any other home to go to," Mr Paulger said
"There really is nowhere else to go; they are using that to their advantage."
He said the group was reluctant to bring the debate into the public arena, but with growing cost pressures and the expense of producing flat supply milk, the price offered could lead to farmer exits.
"I'm not going to lose the shirt off my back (and) what three generations of dairy farmers have worked for, just to get to this point with National Foods and then to walk away from it," Mr Paulger said.
"It's a fight we have got to have."
National Foods' milk procurement and inbound logistics general manager, Murray Jeffrey, said the price of the tier-one milk had to drop because the processor had lost "multi-millions of dollars" in Queensland due to paying a farmgate milk price of more than 55c/litre for the past two years.
However, he disputed claims the offered average price was 10c/litre below the cost of production, saying the average across both tier-one and tier-two milk would be 46.5c/litre.
Mr Jeffrey said 46.19c/litre was the base price and once incentives were included, the average price of tier-one milk would be 51.03c/litre, increasing the overall yearly average across both tiers to 46.5c/litre.
He said the milk supplied in southern Queensland had higher than the average 4 per cent butterfat and 3.2 per cent protein, which was used to calculate the farmgate price, which meant the price would be higher due to incentives.
Mr Jeffrey said National Foods would continue to negotiate with the collective bargaining group, but there was little room to move on its current "fair and reasonable" offer.
"The reality is the price this year is not going to change a lot from what we have got on the table today," Mr Jeffrey said.
Parmalat spokesman David Waugh said taking on extra supply from disgruntled National Foods suppliers was something the company would "consider."
