Hunter dairy farming milked dry

Dairy farmers in parts of the New South Wales Hunter Valley appear to be a dying breed.

The Maitland Rural Lands Protection Board (RLPB) says about 95 per cent of the region's dairy farmers have called it quits over the past three decades.

The Hunter is considered prime dairy country but the fortunes of farmers took a turn for the worse when the industry was deregulated in 2000 and more recently during the drought.

RLPB spokesman Digby Raywood says that has resulted in a mass exodus of local farmers.

"I've been here since 1971 and there would have been over 1,000 [then] and there's only 54 farmers left," he said.