They’ve always been daddy’s little girls, now all grown-up they are making their dads proud!
Daughters of Dairy Farmers (DDF) was created and run on a volunteer basis by three ladies whose message is simple; “We believe it’s an industry worth saving”.
Lisa Harrison, Rachel Rohan and Jo Mollinger all grew up on dairy farms and exude a passion for our Australian dairy industry.
Using social media, mostly Facebook but also Twitter and Instagram, the trio formed DDF and aimed to engage consumers with our local dairy farmers and the broader industry.
After years of sitting behind their computer screens and educating the public on dairy farming, the ladies are now on a mission to engage on a more personal level.
This motivated the group to except Queensland Country Life’s invitation to speak during our next Food Heroes instalment to be held at the Platell family’s dairy farm near Beaudesert in Queensland on May 11.
The three ladies said they were drawing up a plan of this year’s events, including an idea to create online stories and profiles on “Meet Your Farmer” to put a face to our hard working dairy farmers.
Ms Harrison said it was time for consumers to get to know their local dairy farmers.
“There’s a face behind every bottle of milk,” she said.
“There is a farmer who has gotten out of bed at three in the morning to milk the cows to make sure you have fresh milk in your coffee.”
Ms Rohan said the DDF group hopes to continue raising awareness of the battle dairy farmers face and encourage consumers to buy branded milk, instead of dollar-a-litre supermarket milk.
“My dad was at a dairy farming meeting and he was cranky the farmers weren’t using social media to get their stories out,” she said.
“My dad tried to engage with people using online tools, but to be honest his attempts left him a bit frustrated.
“People have this idea of farmers in tractors owning a cow called Daisy, but dairy farmers these days are business owners, they’re operators, they’re educated, they go to seminars.”
In 2012, the trio said they were amazed by the response they received when they launched their DDF Facebook page.
“The support from the local community was amazing,” Ms Harrison said.
“What we found, when we first started, was people were asking us a lot of questions from all over Australia.”
She said people were generally interested to know why certain decisions were being made within the industry and the impact on dairy farmers.
Ms Mollinger added they also wanted to raise awareness of the impact dollar-a-litre milk was having on dairy farmers.
“In 25 years, everything else has changed in price including electricity and wages,” she said.
“So why does milk have to stay the same and why do the farmers have to suffer?”
DDF said they were still very determined to continue educating the public and promised there would be many surprises from the group in 2017.