150 years of dairy farming hung out to dry

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September, 2009 : Owen and Kathryn Rothe, proud dairy farmers of Murray Bridge SA would like to inform the Australian public that they no longer can be dairy farming due to a number of reasons out of their control. With water allocation at 5%, over allocations in other states, water restrictions for over 4 years now with no compensation at all of High Security Water.

High input costs, loss of ground water, land cracking open as wide as a human being or bigger making animals injure themselves or break legs or loose calfs, can no longer milk in the Lower Murray below lock one – the plug end. Today was the last milking on our farm.

Over 150 years of generation dairy farming on both sides have come to an end. Our farming practices over the many years have been environmentally sustainable. We kept up to technology, and understanding of how to treat the land sustainably and environmental and took from our forefathers understanding the animals the weather and planting crops etc.

The history that we have learnt will now not be passed on to the next generation due to strict regulations from governments, and the greed of big business. No compensation was received for tacking the water which was allocated and capped back in 1969, 100% high security which had been paid for. Australia needs to care for its real farmers not corporation farms not international buts its own home grown real farmers who have been here through droughts, floods, fire and for my family they fought in world war one and two so we could live free and have a voice.

But real farmers don’t have a voice we are less than 2% of the population of Australia and are price takers, meaning if big business, supermarkets, companies etc offer less money than our produce than our parents made, how can we survive. We where extremely efficient with our water, but have no control over it being taken away, the price for my produce, we have no control over that. Australia will be eating out of the hands of others. We do not pay our workers a $1 a day, we do not make our children work and not go to school, we do not use banned chemicals.

I would like to inform the Australian communities that we do and we did care for our land, birds, bats, frogs, milly beasts, fish and turtles which made us a very environmentally friendly farm. We had and are on many community committees, attended many meetings to help understand how to better farm and also inform other farmers of learning’s that we had done on our farm.

Recycling water, using solar power for electric fences and heating water for the dairy, making ice at night to cool the milk so high electricity energy was not used, planted many thousands of trees on our property, have stripped grazed paddocks so the land got a rest we even looked after 600 turtles that where dying in the lower lakes due to this over allocation of water.

This is only understood by those who have a connection, who work and breath the land and who know the land like the back of their hands. Its in our soul, its in our hands, its in the wrinkles we wear on our faces. We farmed our land so it would always be here for tomorrow and future generations But when we are under such strict restrictions from many government departments, who don’t understand the situation they have put us seriously in. More than 100 dairy farms have left the industry in our area over the years.

I hope the Australian public will help us farmers make the government departments understand the destruction they are doing by still over allocating ground, surface, contributories, water. We need One voice for the rivers in Australia otherwise we are only seeing greed take over.

I ask for the Australian Public to take up your pens, write to your local and Federal Ministers that enough is enough. We need on ground practical help. Droughts will come and go and we have always copped but if we are to keep abusing the systems Australia will suffer.

Watch Kathryn’s video When the big gums fall on YouTube

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