Letter: Farmers need help over milk prices
We must support our farmers before it’s too late.
We must support our farmers before it’s too late.
Yet again we find ourselves being lulled into a false sense of security. While we have been celebrating The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, Euro 2012, Wimbledon and shortly the Olympics, the farmers who produce our milk are facing extinction because they can no longer sustain price cuts forced upon them.
Whatever happened to our Milk Marketing Board? It was probably dissolved by politicians and other bure-aucrats possibly to come in line with EU legislation.
What about the Potato Marketing Board or the British Sugar Corporation? These went the same way and the farmers lost any protection of their livelihoods by being eaten up by bureaucrats from the EU.
Now with the atrocious weather, it seems that many farmers will not be able to produce sufficient foodstuffs because of crop failures due to rain and drought.
One of the main killers are the supermarkets who dictate the prices and sometimes entire fields of crops have been rejected because they do not meet the standard required. This has seen the ruination of many farmers in recent years.
Can I suggest you write to your MP or boycott supermarkets who are supplied by Robert Wiseman, Dairy Crest or Arla Foods UK?
Perhaps if the farmers boycott the three big processors and sell them milk to the smaller processors – the bully boys think again.
The farmers cannot do this by themselves. They need our help.
Trevor Mytton
Cross Houses
Shrewsbury
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Comments for: "Letter: Farmers need help over milk prices"
All for the greed
The supermarkets greed is ever growing, why don't our hard working farmers take their milk from the shelves and run on their own with fleets of milk men again? Cutting out the middle man which happens to be the greedy fat cats sitting in the supermarkets. They want all the benefit from the hard work of the farmers, I'm sure if they were having to produce and bottle the milk themselves it wouldn't be like this! Farmers need to take back control of their own destiny in the milking industry, I would gladly buy from the milkman direct.
The graduate
It is a complicated one this , people want cheap milk , people do not care where it comes from as long as it is available via a supermarket .
Price will go up once we have no UK dairy industry fact joe public do not care.
Secondly the sad fact is we have not one bit of loyalty within the farming industry to each other the big farmers have bullied and pushed out all the council small holders, tenant farmers etc what do you expect if we have no loyalty .
Fiona
Yes and if I pay £2 for 4L of milk from the corner shop, take into consideration bottling transportation and refrigeration cost who exactly in that chain is greedy? I could cry for our farmers. Fair Trade?!
Realist
"Whatever happened to our Milk Marketing Board? It was probably dissolved by politicians and other bure-aucrats possibly to come in line with EU legislation."
erm no .. it was Maggie who did it (living up to her milk snatcher pre prime ministerial nickname) - all about "market forces" and nothing to do with EU.
So all the farmers who mainly vote Tory and are happy to drive German cars with "Buy British Food" stickers in the window know who to thank ...
Fiona
Mr Patterson Please will you defend our farmers. Please will you defend our reality; the unpretentiousness of Shropshire. It is our greatest asset.
Country Cynic
I grew up on a small dairy farm and have lived in the countryside all my life. I graduated from university with a degree in Agriculture in 1984, just in time for the start of the big decline in the dairy industry, the abolition of the MMB and the imposition of quota etc.
I have seen many sides to these debates, but over the years I have come to the firm conclusion that that the whole situation has been generated by the greed of the parties involved.
Many farmers were very willing to see the end of the MMB and the guaranteed market and pricing as the lure of the open market and possibility of higher prices twinkled in their eyes.Now that the equally greedy and exploitative supermarkets etc are calling the shots they are expecting sympathy from the consumer. The farmers still rely on the expectation that we should all be grateful to them for feeding us; and indeed during past wars and subsequent periods this was only fair. Unfortunately the subsidies given to them to maintain our food supply and maintain their prosperity became the norm as their prosperity increased and they were maintained when no longer needed, I dont know what current figures are, but in the early 1980s each UK family of 4 were subsidising the farmers to the tune of £2000 annually.
The greedy farmers increased production to obscene levels, skilfully increasing their over subsidised income and pushing the smaller producers out of the game as they did so.
It is a great shame that the exploitation of the supermarkets is hitting the small producer again and will be sending even more of them to the history books. The larger producers can still weather a lot of this storm despite their bloated whinging, the only thoughts they really have our for themselves and their lifestyles; as they continue to sneer at the small family farmers and the rest of us who have paid dearly to support them.