THE Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers Association wants an independent ombudsman appointed to monitor supermarket marketing practices and enforce a mandatory code of conduct.
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The call follows last month's Australian Competition and Consumer Commission findings against Coles over social media claims it made about milk returns to farmers but could not substantiate.
Coles had claimed farmers received $1 for every two litres of Coles brand milk.
This followed a $1 milk price war in supermarkets.
TFGA chief executive officer Jan Davis said farmer organisations argued the claims were false, because their returns had dropped and took Coles to the ACCC, claiming misleading or deceptive conduct.
"The ACCC's ruling is an indictment of Coles and undermines their key claim that they have absorbed the cost of $1-per-litre milk," she said.
"We always argued that milk priced at $1 per litre was unsustainable and would cost dairy farmers and others in the supply chain.
"This case proves that you have to treat supermarket propaganda as just that, propaganda and probably wrong."
Ms Davis said the TFGA would press for an enforceable supermarket code of conduct, monitored by an independent ombudsman with the power to impose penalties, to stem the use of excessive market power.
Even though the majority of Tasmania's 437 dairy farms have been somewhat quarantined from the $1 price war, since most milk production here is for milk powder, the state's fresh milk farmers were still affected, Ms Davis said.
