Plight Of Australian Dairying

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30739, 1 May 1965, Page 10

Plight Of Australian Dairying

A QUEENSLANDER, Mr R. C. Jensen, who has joined the staff of Lincoln College as a lecturer in agricultural economics, is completing a thesis for his master of agricultural economics degree on the effect of tropical legume pastures in developing low-income dairy farms in Queensland. Mr Jensen said this week that two-thirds of the dairy farms in Australia were producing less than 80001 b of butterfat a year. This figure of 80001 b of butterfat had been arrived at by a dairy industry committee of inquiry in 1959 as the minimum level of production consistent with a reasonable standard of living. One-third of these farmers could be brought up to a production level of 80001 b, but the remaining third had no possibility of reaching this level of production. This latter group were really subsist-ence-type fanners and were mainly in the sub-tropical dairying areas of south-east Queensland and the north coast of New South Wales. Mr Jensen said that the research he had done so far indicated that in the best possible circumstances and with the aid of the latest technical developments, such as the introduction of tropical legume pastures, the production of

these subsistence farms could be raised by about 350 per cent, but they would then still only be up to the average level of production in Victoria and equivalent to the South Island of New Zealand. It was questionable whether a great deal of money should be spent on development of these farms.

Mr Jensen said that the Australian dairy fanner was receiving about 4s per lb of

commercial butter. The industry was subsidised to the extent of about £13.5m a year, and added to this were what he termed “social costs” caused by inefficiencies associated with other industries, which had been estimated at £lom to £lsm more, making a total cost to the Australian taxpayer of about £3om a year. Farmers were leaving dairying in Australia at about the same rate as in New Zealand, and it was not those in the low-income group but rather in the middle-income bracket who were moving out. The low-income farmers were continuing in dairying as a family tradition as it was the only life that they knew. The problem of these farmers was being aggravated by Hie quite rapid depletion of soils on coastal areas where dairy farming was being done on podsol type soils and farms were becoming increasingly infested with non-edible weeds like bracken fern.

A practical proposition seemed to be to subsidise these people out of dairying into other industries.

The dairy industry in Australia in the sub-tropical areas was a very different proposition from dairying in New Zealand, said Mr Jensen. It was basically a grassland type of fanning with as a rule the grasses being ephemeral and they were sufficient for maintenance plus full production for only about three months. Till recently there had been no legume at all that would grow in un--1 irrigated conditions, and no

suitable winter grass, and only about 5 per cent of farms would be irrigated, so that the available legume deficient diet was not conducive to high production levels. Production levels were as low as 1001 b of commercial butter a cow a year on the poorer farms and only 1471 b a cow a year for Queensland as a whole.

More than 90 per cent of dairy farmers in Queensland would never have paid tax, said Mr Jensen. The primary producer in Australia had many more tax concessions than his New Zealand counterpart and losses made in any one year could be carried forward for seven, so that when a farmer began to make a taxable income he might not pay tax for several years. Mr Jensen said he know of a farmer who had been dairying for 30 years and only then had started to pay tax in one year. Mr Jensen, who was a temporary lecturer in agricultural economics at the University of New England at Armidale, gained a diploma in animal husbandry from the Queensland Agricultural College at Gatton in 1952. He then entered the Queensland Teachers* College in Brisbane and subsequently for two years was assistant organiser for tiie Junior Farmers* Clubs in Queensland. For another eight years he was teaching in two Queensland secondary schools. In 1960 as an external student he gained his bachelor of agricultural economics and in 1963 he enrolled at the University of New England for the master’s degree in agricultural economics. He worked at the university as a reasearch assistant for one year and then as a temporary lecturer for a year.