Farming in crisis: There will be nothing for my sons to take on

Tim Dale is a fifth generation dairy farmer with 400 acres of land at Ford, near Shrewsbury.

But he fears there will not be a sixth generation unless price cuts imposed by milk buyers are reversed.

If that doesn't happen, his three young sons won't have the opportunity of taking over the family business.

"Every litre of milk I produce is going to cost me 5p," says the 36-year-old, who has 240 cows producing 2.4 million litres of milk every year.

Thanks to the 2p cut introduced in April, and the 2p cut planned for August 1, Mr Dale estimates he is going to lose £100,000 a year.

"It's a challenge," he admits, with understatement, and although he laughs when he says it, there's really nothing funny about his situation.

"I try to look at these things optimistically," he adds, "I've been going through my sums very carefully and I'm confident, personally, that I can see the winter out.

"But there are others, I have no doubt, who will run out of cash before the winter and they'll have to sell their cows off if the present situation continues."

And when the latest cuts come in, Mr Dale knows it will be only a matter of time until he too has to turn his back on the dairy industry.

"We cannot stand it for ever," he warns.

"There will come a point when you have to say enough is enough and you have to stop producing milk.

"But I hope that it does not come to that.

"Given the way things are at the moment I might be able to make a little bit of money as an arable farmer."

But he says dairy farming has been in the family for generations and he would hate to be forced out – dairy farming is what he does, he's good at it, and he is providing a quality product.

Mr Dale said he and his wife Laura hoped to build up the business in the hope that their sons – Freddie, aged four, Alex, aged two, and six-month-old Matthew – would have the opportunity of following in their footsteps.

"I would like them to have the chance," he says.

But he knows that chance is fading with every price cut forced upon him.

"It makes me angry," he adds, pointing out that milk is a product that does well for supermarkets and is one of those everyday essentials that gets people through their doors.

"They should be grateful for having it and be glad to pay us a premium for it," he said.

"At the moment the price they pay is causing permanent damage to the supply chain and risks not having it available on a local basis in a few years' time."

Another Shropshire farmer, Rob Kynaston, shares Mr Dale's gloomy outlook.

Mr Kynaston has 80 milking cows on 200 acres at Halfway House, near Shrewsbury.

At the moment he's making a 1.2p profit on each of the 600,000 litres his farm produces every year, but that's only enough to keep the farm ticking over, it doesn't provide for future investment.

But if the co-operative he sells his milk to decides to cut its prices by 2p a litre later this year, following on from a 2p cut imposed in April, he's also going to be making a loss. "I have the advantage that I own my farm, so the bank will lend me money because I've got assets," he says.

"I can borrow money, but it's not sustainable."

Farmers without assets will find it harder to borrow, he adds.

"The thing with land is that you can do other things with it, such as grow crops, you don't have to milk cows, but it means many people will walk away."

Many other jobs depend on the dairy industry, he points out, not just farmworkers, and if the industry suffers those workers will also pay the price.

"When a bottle of mineral water costs more than a litre of milk there's either something wrong with people's buying choices or something wrong with the pricing system."

Mr Kynaston, who is a father of two, has been in the industry for more than 30 years.

His father and grandfather were both dairy farmers, and he genuinely loves the job.

But he says supermarkets have chosen to sell milk at a loss in order to bring people into their shops, and are making the farmers pay the price.

He believes that most shoppers don't really notice the price of milk, and a extra two pence on a pint, or 20p a week, would not really affect them.

"But," he says, "it would make a terrific difference to farmers."