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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2018-06-05 Daily Xml
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World Milk Day

Mr BASHAM (Finniss) (15:23): It was interesting, listening to that grievance; it sounds like the former member for Mayo may have joined the Labor Party. I rise to speak about something I am very passionate about, and that is World Milk Day, which was last Friday. World Milk Day celebrates the dairy industry and the consumption of milk worldwide. It is a subject I am very passionate about as my family has been in the dairy industry for 170 years in South Australia, and they continue to be so.

The South Australian dairy industry currently has about 240 dairy farmers milking 65,000 cows on a daily basis and producing 487 million litres of milk, which makes up about 5.5 per cent of the national production. That has a total farmgate value of $181 million with $63 million worth of dairy exports, and leads to about 1,300 jobs.

In contrast, the industry certainly has changed. Back 40 years ago there were 1,730 dairy farms milking 103,000 cows. One of the other things that has changed in that time is that we have seen significant changes in productivity. The dairy farmers of South Australia have made amazing efforts to improve productivity over time. We have seen milk production go from 3,163 litres per cow per year from the late 1970s to more than double with 6,521 litres in the last year on record, 2017.

There are many reasons for those productivity gains. Over that time, there have been significant improvements in the understanding of feeding cows, making sure that we feed the cows in a way that maximises the milk production. We are seeing farmers take that knowledge and turn it into an improvement in productivity. We have also seen a huge change in pasture management. We have seen farmers learn how to grow grass better, grow more grass, use less fertiliser to grow more grass, and maximise the use of natural rainfall as well as understand how to grow grass if irrigation is available.

We have also seen huge improvements in genetic gain. Back in the 1970s, we as an industry moved away from the use of natural insemination from bulls running with cows towards using artificial insemination and using those higher productivity bulls across our herds to get great gains. We have taken all the low-hanging fruit in productivity gains that the industry can find at this point in time. One of the future big gains that is probably still out there is a further improvement in the genetic space.

As the industry has invested heavily in this space over the last few years, in my involvement with Australian dairy farmers and through Dairy Australia's investment, we have realised enormous potential in these gains in genetic improvement by going back to DNA markers and working out the mapping of the dairy cow and the size being used. That is enabling the dairy industry to take those gains and, rather than testing to see where the bull delivers possible gains, actually realise those gains by looking at the DNA of the animal before it is used and shortening the circuit by about five years.

We have seen the dairy industry go through troubled times over the last few years. A lot of that has been caused by the decline and demise of businesses such as Murray Goulburn. Going forward, pricing is looking optimistic and we are seeing greater change in the industry. The other thing I loved about Dairy Day last Friday is that I was able to go and speak to a year 4 class at Investigator College and talk about where milk comes from. I was surprised, though, to be told by the kids that it was also International Doughnut Day and they would have preferred doughnuts rather than a glass of milk when I came to the school. I thank the house for its time.

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