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Fears over approaching meltdown
on UK dairy farms
Editorial
Filed 20 Sep 06
©www,land-care.org.uk
The President of the British Veterinary Association
(BVA), Dr Freda Scott-Park, has echoed the concerns expressed in
the following open letter to Tony Blair, Prime Minister.
Dear Prime Minister
APPROACHING MELTDOWN ON UK DAIRY FARMS
We write this open letter as informed observers to express our
deepest concern at the plight of UK milk producers. Family-run
dairy farms have for centuries shaped the rural areas of western
Britain and Northern Ireland. They produce some of the highest
quality milk in the world. Their crossbred calves provide a substantial
proportion of UK beef and the vast majority maintain and manage
our countryside to the highest standards.
In recent years they have had to cope with BSE, Foot and Mouth
Disease, Bovine TB and a growing burden of bureaucracy and paperwork.
Both government and milk buyers demand that they farm in compliance
with ever increasing regulation. Their reward? Their reward is
a farm-gate milk price some 30% lower than it was 10 years ago
and little different than it was 20 years ago. Unfortunately the
same cannot be said of their production costs. Increased energy
costs and spiralling fertiliser prices have already hit home.
The recent drought has resulted in fodder shortages and significantly
increased feed prices. Despite substantially higher production
costs, farm gate milk prices continue to fall. Time is rapidly
running out for our hard-pressed dairy farmers.
Today UK milk producers receive approximately 10 pence per pint
for milk that costs 11.5 pence per pint to produce. The same milk
retails for at least 27 pence per pint in the major supermarkets
or up to 48 pence per pint on the doorstep. Production costs have
been pared to the bone and there is little or nothing that family
farms can do to achieve further savings.
Put simply, the balance of power within the supply chain is weighted
entirely in favour of the large retailers, with a relatively weak
processing sector competing to meet their demands. The individual
milk producer has no bargaining power at all.
If Society chooses to ignore this gross imbalance of power we
will rapidly witness the demise of the family-run dairy farm.
They will be replaced by a small number of industrial milk factories
that will contribute nothing to our countryside. Worse still,
we could end up importing our entire milk supply with all the
attendant strategic risks and environmental damage caused by increased
"food miles".
Farmer-led protests to the milk processors and retailers have
achieved little. The only voice that the retailers choose to hear
is that of their consumers. If we wish to retain our family-run
dairy farms with all that they bring to our countryside, consumers
and Government need to speak out loud, speak out clear and
speak out now.
Yours sincerely
David Hughes BSc(Hons) FBIAC
Farm Business Consultant
Norman Buxton NDA, Dip Ag
Chairman, Datag Farm Management Systems
Commenting on the letter Dr Freda Scott-Park, herself the wife of
a dairy farmer, said
“We ourselves have had to explore every conceivable form
of diversification in order to ensure the future of our small
organic dairy herd. Despite producing quality organic milk
and selling organic beef from crossbred calves at Farmers' Markets,
10 years of small or no surpluses have meant that there has been
little investment in the fabric of the farm and holiday accommodation
would appear to be the only way to ensure the survival of our
own small family run farm.
“For non-organic producers, whose milk price is approximately
10 pence per pint, the situation is grim; the belt can only be
tightened so far and whereas every other business providing services
to the farm can put up their costs, dairy farmers have to accept
a fixed farm gate price for their milk that is lower than their
production costs.
“I wholeheartedly endorse the concerns outlined to The Prime
Minister by the signatories to the letter, which includes BVA
Honorary Members Lord Plumb of Coleshill DL and Lady Winterton
MP and join with them in calling on Government and consumers to
redress the situation before the UK becomes totally reliant on
imported milk.”
The plight of dairy farmers in the UK is indeed
dire. Whether the Inquiry into the trading practices of the supermarkets
currently being conducted by the Office of Fair Trading will produce
any solution remains to be seen. Certainly its first attempt was
totally ineffectual.
But of course the problem goes much wider than
dairy farmers, although they are in the front line. With present
government policies, both north and south of the border, suckler
herds on what is agriculturally referred to as "less favoured
ground" are also under serious threat of meltdown. Who then
is going to produce the calves for the more favoured lower ground
to provide our British beef? And who is going to look after the
countryside when these farmers also have to give up a totally unequal
struggle?
Unfortunately, the reality is that Tony Blair
is not the least interested in the plight of farmers in England
and Wales, and the Scottish Executive - for all their protestations
to the contrary - isn't either. But French farmers - and those recently
welcomed into the EU - are laughing all the way to the bank at our
expense.
UK politicians (both central and devolved)
of all parties want to sing from a green agenda hymn sheet, competing
for who is the greenest. But all is false if they cannot show more
concern for those whose livelihood depends on working on the land
and producing our own wholesome food.
©www.land-care.org.uk
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