THE region’s dairy farmers are leaving the industry in hundreds as the drought and sky-high water prices continue to take their toll.
An estimated 400 dairy farmers have left the Murray Valley region in the past year, milk production has halved to one billion litres and thousands of dairy cows have been destined for slaughter.
Swan Hill dairy farmer Lindsay Rogers told The Guardian it was frustrating to see “so many people” outraged by the death of racehorses in recent weeks when their finely bred dairy cows were meeting the same fate in much larger quantities.
“People are getting all upset about racehorses, but they don’t seem to to know or care about farmers who are having to send their breeding stock to the slaughterhouse just to pay the bills,” Mr Rogers said.
“Our cows are no different than race horses, but without the glamour and the headlines.”
Mr Rogers, who has been farming since he was 12 years old said the last of his breeding stock would be killed in the coming weeks.
“We just can’t afford it anymore; we can’t milk cows if we don’t have fodder but we can’t grow fodder without water,” he said.
“The beautiful girls have only just got through and given us their babies, but time is now limited and we cannot afford to feed through the summer with no affordable water for winter.
“I will hate these times for the rest of my life and feel shameful to have let them down.”
Mr Rogers said “water has become privatised and unattainable”, causing enormous economic and emotional damage to farming communities right across Australia.
“Yet millions of dollars of environmental water still flows out to sea,” he said.
“And large corporations and overseas multinational companies push up our water price to ridiculous levels beyond affordability.
“I thought the dams were built to protect us and our stock but the truth be known now they are only there to service the greedy and buy political votes.”
Mr Rogers has taken his frustration to social media where his post, ‘our breeding stock to the slaughterhouse’ has received more than 1000 likes and 3.4 thousand shares.
“Allowing water to evaporate or flow out to sea is madness. It’s killing our communities,” Mr Rogers said.
“We must reverse the water out to sea, ban foreign and off-farm ownership of water.
“The Murray-Darling Basin Plan is a national disaster and an absolute disgrace to our politicians.”
Despite the staggering figures and outcry from the nations farmers, the Australian Government is adamant they are doing the right thing.
“Environmental water is making a real difference to the largest and most iconic river red gum forest in the world — helping it pull through the drought,” the Commonwealth environmental water office said in a statement earlier this week.
“Water for the environment has been set aside for exactly this purpose and agreed by all basin governments, so when it’s very dry, water can be used to support the health of our river systems.”
