ACCORDING to a report in the Farm Weekly the promised benefits to dairy farmers, processors and consumers over ten years ago has not materialised. In Western Australia there are about 320 dairy farms that between them produce around 370 million litres of milk per year. The main existing dairy regions are situated from fifty kilometres from the coast from Waroona to Albany. There were many more dairy farms north of Perth but these have fallen with the encroachment of urban dwellings. Prior to the 1970s, the dairy industry was made up of large numbers of small family owned farms milking under 70 cows, but today the dairy industry is a large scale, intensive operation using the latest technology. Cattle are milked in large dairies, which can milk up to 800 cattle per hour.