"It hurts like crazy when you go into a supermarket and pay more for a bottle of water than a bottle of milk,'' says Mr McIntosh, who farms above a picturesque valley north of Berry.

Yet his livelihood rests with milk processor Devondale Murray Goulburn which has signed a 10-year deal with Coles, the supermarket which introduced $1-a-litre milk.

Critics say the Coles deal, which enables Murray Goulburn to build new processing plants in Sydney and Melbourne, will punish producers with cheap milk for a decade.

Mr McIntosh has signed a contract with the Australian farmers co-operative to build a share portfolio for retirement in 10 years time.

"We've seen lot of the industry,especially the processing sector, become owned by multinational companies. [Murray Goulburn] was like a breath of fresh air in the market place because it appeared we were going to be at the beck and call of supermarkets but also multi-national companies that make difficult decisions at times in the processing sector,'' he said.

Supermarket vendors were a fact of life, placing milk at the back of their shops to get people walking past most aisles.

"My own thought is, if there is a really strong demand and manufacturing products develop and we get good results from a China free-trade agreement, we can start to generate export as well. Then there will be competition for milk, whether it is liquid milk or whether it is going into manufacturing milk, it is going to be a healthy state.''

The NSW Farmers Dairy Committee president, Mr McIntosh says deregulation, droughts and $1-a-litre milk forced so many farmers out of the industry demand for milk in Queensland and Western Australia could outstrip supply.

“It does get expensive in dry times and really wet times to keep that production going. We used to rely on a bit of premium in the liquid milk market to offset those off seasons when you know you have to supply.’’

Departing farmers left cheap farms and more efficient producers behind, which subsequently attracted multinational companies keen to capture lucrative markets across Asia including China.

"New Zealand shows if you can get a good trade deal with China it can send your industry on a good path to prosperity. We have seen, too, the need for dairy in China and Japan, in the form of powder of UHT milk or various dairy products, they don’t have the variety we have in Australia.''

Mr McIntosh rises at 3am to milk 175 cows each day, before feeding stock. Wide-eyed and wet-nosed calves have bonded with him when only a week old. And he knows each cow by name in his Holstein herd of 300.

His 86-year-old father Bruce tidies up fencing before sharing a view with Rob over the valley to Woodhill Mountain,where 126 milk suppliers farmed in the 1960s. Now there are six.

Multimillion-dollar mansions and thick bush fill the farming area where Mr McIntosh snr predicts raging bushfires will one day return and, without a farming community to fight it, will kill many of the unwary new occupants.