THE Milk Bottle Award has been reinstated by WAFarmers dairy council and presented to its former president Michael Partridge recently.
Current dairy council president Ian Noakes told the dairy conference at Busselton he was reinstating the award, which had not been presented for several years, in recognition of Mr Partridge's "fantastic support of WA dairy".
He said Mr Partridge had worked hard as WAFarmers' representative on national advocacy body Australian Dairy Farmers (ADF) for eight years and as dairy council vice president and then president "on breaking $1 a litre milk" and negotiating a retail price rise levy to return more money from fresh milk sales to dairy farmers.
"It was only a 10c rise, but it made a massive difference and I think you can take a tremendous amount of credit for that," Mr Noakes told Mr Partridge, who farms White Rocks, Benger, with his family.
The milk bottle-shaped award carved from wood is traditionally presented for outstanding service to the local dairy industry.
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Mr Partridge's father David, who has his own milk bottle award for his time on the ADF and dairy council, was at the conference and applauded as his son received his.
After Mr Noakes took over as dairy council president in 2020, Mr Partridge stayed on as vice president to support him during negotiations for preparation of the State dairy plan which was launched at the conference.
He stood down after a total of six years as vice president and four as president at the dairy council annual meeting the same day.
