I do not know what dairy farmers get for milk, but I presume for starters that it is less than $1 and more than 50c a litre. My instinctive tendency is to pick the mid-point of a range of numbers that spring to mind – that is, 75c a litre in this case. Whatever the farm-gate price is for a dairy farmer, it must suffice to induce most of them to produce milk, because there is no noticeable shortage on shop shelves, and I am fairly sure the litres retailed have not declined in recent years for the want of supply.
I would not normally care if Woolworts increased the price of milk to $1.10 per litre, but the political way they have gone about it gets up my nose. Instead of simply paying their suppliers more, and adjusting their prices to whatever they fancied, they have invented a pathetic story that the extra 10c is going to the farmers, as though this should warm the cockles of my heart. Is Woolworths now going to increase the price of sugar, wheat and wine to raise money for cane farmers, wheat farmers, grape growers, and so on? As there is nothing unique about farmers, what about helping bakers, butchers, fishers, and others?
I'll now not think of Woolworths as the default retailer I call into when I need milk, and then often buy a few other items on impulse.
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