Farm Power, an online community supporting Australian farmers, organised the rally, which will assemble at Federation Square at 11.30am and make its way to Spring Street by 12:30pm.

“We are calling on anyone and everyone to come and save our farmers,” Farmer Power president Chris Gleeson told Fairfax Media. 

Consumers have already shown their support through petitions and shopping behaviour, opting for Murray Goulburn’s Devondale and Kiewa-branded products over supermarket labels. In late April Devondale Murray Goulburn revised it’s farm gate price for milk solids from $5.60 a kilogram down to between $4.75 and $5.

That equates to about 38c to 42c a litre for milk. For some dairy farmers that is below the cost of production.

The downgrade was backdated because the business said farmers were over paid for the year, and Murray Goulburn would recoup part of the over payments this year and recoup the rest over the next three years.

Effectively the co-op’s milk pool – anywhere between $1.15b and $1.5b  each year – had been over distributed to farmers, through farm gate payments.

Expected sales to China did not happen and a Russian embargo on western imports saw a flood of excess European and United States dairy on traditional Australian markets.