Article by Melissa Pedelty, courtesy of Countryman
21.08.2025
The 2025 WAFarmers Dairy Conference drew hundreds of industry professionals from across the State to hear from several industry stalwarts on a range of topics from milk export opportunities to robot dairying.
The well-attended event, hosted by WAFarmers on August 7, focused on new opportunities and areas for growth within the industry in a bid to bolster industry confidence.
While WA is grappling with low milk volumes, higher input costs and low farmgate prices, it was clear confidence in the industry’s future was growing.
WAFarmers dairy council president Ian Noakes said he could see the future was looking brighter despite WA farmers being underpaid for their milk, while WAFarmers president Steve McGuire said there was an abundance of productivity in the room that would help the industry thrive into the future.
Dairy Australia trade manager Catherine Taylor, Harvey River Estate owner Kevin Sorgiovanni, Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development principal business development manager Terry Burnage, Bannister Downs managing director Sue Daubney and Jas Australia managing director Jason Radford spoke on export opportunities.
Frogmore Grazing managing director Rodney Galati, Farmwest genetic adviser Michael Rose and Dairy Australia policy lead animal health and welfare Louise Sundermann discussed growing the dairy beef market.
Dairy Australia soils and irrigation lead Cath Lescun spoke on growing multi-species pastures, and North Australian Cattle Company general manager Ashley James spoke about an opportunity to export dairy heifers to Indonesia.
Cowaramup dairy farmer Jacqui Biddulph was presented the prestigious WAFarmers dairy council’s Milk Bottle Award.
Sue Daubney on Net Zero Impacts
When asked if there were any key items for the dairy industry to consider, Sue Daubney raised the upcoming cost burdens directly related to compliance with net zero targets.
“These will hit agriculture and all of its related industries very hard, as margins in agriculture are already very low and farmers are facing constant input cost hikes. The introduction of further costs due to net zero will be beyond anything that a farm business can sustain. Even worse, it is unknown if the required electric agricultural equipment even exists and, if it does, how it will be able to cover vast distances where currently there are no charging stations — not to mention all of the downtime in charging. We can’t even get mobile signal!! Time is critical in farming, and it has taken centuries to gain efficiencies and to be able to find productivity gains to stay abreast of rising costs. With the reckless pursuit of net zero, all of this progress will be wasted as we go backwards to a far less productive operation.”
“In the last 12–18 months, the cost of our monthly electricity has gone from $22,000 to $42,000, which I find unbelievable as we cannot absorb these increases, and we know that the consumer certainly doesn’t expect to start paying double for their milk. I can only presume that these dramatic increases reflect the cost burden storming in to offset all of the subsidies and inefficiencies with the shift to the unreliable ‘renewables’ supply.”
