Dairy town of Monto fights to hold on to its heritage despite downturn

A Queensland town says it will continue to host the southern hemisphere's only dairy festival, despite mounting pressures on the declining industry. By Kallee Buchanan
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«We’re doing over a million litres. We just want more money; we’re only just hanging on,» Mr Darlington said.
He said that as a market milk supplier, the current dairy crisis had not had too much of an impact on production, but years of falling prices were taking a toll.
«We need an upturn in price; we’ve just been left behind since deregulation,» he said.
«People think about how much they paid for fuel 15 years ago and how much they paid for power 15 years ago, well we’re still sitting on the same milk price we were getting 15 years ago.
«We’re still wearing those bills.»
Mr Darlington said producers were finding it hard to stay in the industry.
«The fact is, there’s only 400 dairy farmers left in Queensland,» he said.
Mr Darlington is a past president of Monto’s dairy festival, and his mother was president before him.
He said it was important the town retained the festival and its link to the past.
«It’s what was built, it fed many families, it grew many families,» he said.
«It had a lot of share farmers. Every little block … they all had farms and families and schools and everything. The town was just built on them [dairies].»
As much as 30 per cent of Queensland’s fresh milk is imported from southern states, and Mr Darlington said if something did not change, the industry would continue to decline.
«I think it’s going to have to or there won’t be a dairy industry left in Queensland,» he said.
«It’s coming very close to the time that things are going to have to change or we just won’t be here any more.»
Festival president Tyrone O’Reilly said the festival had been running for more than 50 years, and it was an important event for the community to show the dairy industry some support.
«They’ve been getting hit from a few different areas [and] a lot of them are pretty tough and they just keep on plugging away at it,» he said.
«We like to link it all back into the history of the town.
«We’ve had the butter factory here that was running for years and even though a lot of it’s closed down now, we still like to thank them for making it a great town.»
The next Monto Dairy Festival will be held in 2018.
 
Source: ABC
Link: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-28/dairy-town-of-monto-fights-to-hold-on-to-its-heritage/7880578
 

Mirá También

Así lo expresó Domingo Possetto, secretario de la seccional Rafaela, quien además, afirmó que a los productores «habitualmente los ignoran los gobiernos». Además, reconoció la labor de los empresarios de las firmas locales y aseguró que están «esperanzados» con la negociación entre SanCor y Adecoagro.

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