Floods, pandemics, wars and market forces: What's driving up the price of milk?

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At the end of 2021, the cost of a litre of home-brand milk in an Australian supermarket was about $1.30. It's now about $1.60. 9News

State and territory governments set minimum farm-gate prices that maintained farmer income.With deregulation, farmers, processors and supermarkets were set free to negotiate prices.In economic theory, free trade works fine when you have a large number of buyers and sellers, all with the same amount of information about what is happening in the market.

But in the milk industry, thousands of producers sell to a handful of milk processors, who then sell to even fewer retailers.The major supermarkets control almost 60 per cent of total milk sales.It is not often you hear fresh producers screaming at supermarkets, in what is a very similar arrangement.from the Department of Agriculture, Waters and the Environment, there is a "perceived market failure".

On top of that, lately US and European dairy farmers have had a hard time with drought, increasing international prices. The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation's Dairy Price Index increased by more than 17 from 2020 to 2021, and is expected to rise another 15 per cent by the end of this year.

The projected 28 per cent rise in farm-gate milk prices in 2022-23 will bring the value of the Australian dairy production to a recordYou might not appreciate it, but to keep dairy farmers in business, a fair price must be paied for your fresh milk.

 

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Wait till they tax cow farts. Farmers will have to kill cows to meet the ridicilous methane tax Albo has signed us up for. We will have to turn to powdered milk tgen. When are you actually going to tell the truth?

Fuck 30 cents how will I feed my family?

Maybe the supermarkets decided that home-brand milk was too cheap and wanted to make more money 🤔

It's clearly the cow farts... Just ask AdamBandt.

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