Australia’s biggest milk producer has slashed dairy prices so viciously that farmers can’t even recoup the cost they pay to produce it. Tragically, farmers have no choice but to send their cows to slaughter or face bankruptcy.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, farmers are being forced to pay back the retroactive price cut themselves, a total of around $200 million between about 2,500 farmers. The dairy giant is expected to make $40 million in profit this year—but it’s all going to noteholders, not farmers.

This heartless move will devastate an entire industry of farmers who have spent years building up their stocks. And the lust for profit is already having a ripple effect: New Zealand is slashing prices even lower and farmers expect a worse cut next year.

Choose farmers over corporate profit. Tell the Australian government to set a fair price for homegrown milk.

It’s impossible not to feel for the farmers who are essentially being preyed upon by dairy giant Murray Goulburn, a corporation with only one motive: profit. Farmers, many of whom run family-led farms, are fearful they’ll be forced to sell milk solids for as little as $4.30 a kilogram next year. Forcing at least one farm to slaughter 700 dairy cows a week -- with no end in sight.

There is a growing groundswell of support for the devastated dairy farmers across the country, and it’s time for SumOfUs members to join in. We’re used to turning the tide -- we just won a massive victory in New Zealand when 40,000 of us forced a local town council in rural NZ to halt a deal selling 40 million litres of public water to a secret bottling company. We can do the same here if enough of us speak up.

Tell the government that Australia supports dairy farmers. Set a fair price for milk and choose farms over profit!

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