AUSTRALIAN dairy farmers were buoyed last week by the announcement that Woolworths intended to introduce the 10 cent/litre Drought Levy with Coles scurrying to follow suit a few hours later.
Queensland Dairy Organisation vice president Matthew Trace said the hope lasted until both Coles and Woolworths announced the levy would only apply to a single line – their own brand 3L which is the product bought most frequently by larger struggling Aussie families across the country.
“It was portrayed as a win for dairy farmers but it was really deceiving consumers,” he said.
“The concept of the campaign was to introduce a relatively small increase across all milk products, not just one.
“To make it worse, Coles signaled its intention to give the 10 cent levy to the National Farmers Federation instead of to their suppliers, Norco.
“Many dairy farmers see this as Coles and NFF stealing from the dairy industry because the money will go into a drought fund not necessarily to dairy farmers.”
Mr Trace said Woolworths was also muddying the waters by deciding to release a branded drought levy milk.
“So Woolworths is trying to confuse consumers and Coles is trying to trick them and it has turned out to be a bit of a race to the bottom,” he said.
“At least Woolworths is going to pay the money to their supplier, Parmalat to distribute to their dairy farmers, with QDO and other bodies to audit the payment process to ensure the money gets to the farmers.”
QDO announced that the issue would not go away until the drought levy applied to all milks, all sizes and in all states and urged shoppers to use their own bargaining power to choose branded milk and other supermarkets prepared to support dairy farmers.
