With the US announcing their reintroduction of export subsidies for dairy products and Fonterra announcing a major drop in their payout predictions.

While dairy farmers in the EU are protesting for more funding or cheaper fuel for farmers, and we may see them get more subsidization in the wake of the US’ announcement, here in New Zealand will we see help from our Government?

While I am extremely happy to have National back in power, with the hope that there will be more help for the hardworking rather than the opposite of what we have seen in past years – I’ll stop there before I get myself in too much trouble – I severely doubt that we will see much relief here.

The whole world is in recession and at no time could we dairy farmers think that we were immune, it was going to hit us at some stage or another.

When dairy farmers suffer so does the country’s economy, you will see a downturn in sales at major rural supply stores, agricultural contractors, sales of new machinery vehicles will drop seeing farmers choosing to put up with what they can.

The cheque book will definitely be going in the freezer, in turn seeing jobs lost at these agricultural companies.

Many accountants are predicting that most farms will be running at a loss this coming season and that we will see some farmers not make it through.

Since taking on more land to expand our farm, we have constantly watched interest rates and fixed certain amounts at different terms juggling our mortgage to the best of our ability.

While it can seem like doom and gloom this week we only have to look back to over a decade ago when payouts were down to what has been predicted this week, and while our farm’s mortgage was a hell of a lot less in those days it certainly didn’t seem it.

The herd running through the shed was a lot smaller and interest rates were three to four times higher so when we sat down and compared figures, we realised we could make it through and hopefully so can most others by tightening our belts, putting our heads down, arses up and working hard because in reality, what else can we do?