A handful of farmers with unwanted milk struggled to keep their anger in check yesterday when they came face-to-face with executives from Brownes, Harvey Fresh and Lion at the WAFarmers dairy conference.
Brownes chief executive Tony Girgis fended off repeated calls to apologise to one of the families whose milk supply contract is not being renewed.
Wagerup farmer Tony Ferraro said Brownes had dumped his family weeks after Mr Girgis sat at their table and described them as “perfect farmers”.
Dale Hanks also hit out at Mr Girgis, saying he was dumped six days after being assured Brownes wanted his milk.
Brownes has told four farmers their contracts will not be renewed and Harvey Fresh is cutting five farmers. Lion has ruled out signing the stranded farmers.
Former WAFarmers president Mike Norton, one of the farmers dropped by Harvey Fresh, predicted the numbers of dairy farmers in WA would drop from about 140 to 100.
Mr Girgis said Brownes was exploring every option to deal with the oversupply, including loss-making cheese production at Brunswick.
Harvey Fresh general manager Paul Lorimer said the Parmalat-owned processor did not have a home for the volume of milk it was receiving from farmers.
He revealed Harvey Fresh’s distributor of long-life milk in China had cut its annual order from 12 million litres to two million in a major blow which came after it lost the Coles contract to Lion.
WAFarmers chief executive Stephen Brown is meeting representatives of Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce in Canberra next week to discuss the issues.
Source: Yahoo
Link: https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/wa/a/32178084/tempers-boil-as-farmers-attack-dairy-processors/?cmp=st&cmp=st&cmp=st#page1
