Milk producers on the breadline (From Chard & Ilminster News)
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Milk producers on the breadline
8:16am Wednesday 20th December 2006 in Chard By Matthew Colledge
CAMPAIGN organiser Sally Dare with cows Amy Borkowski and Simon Tucker, demonstrating that milk is no longer the cash cow it was for dairy farmers.
ACT now or watch rural life die was the desperate plea from campaigning farmers in Chard last week.
The Great Milk Robbery group says bully-boy supermarkets are forcing dairy farmers out of business by guzzling profits from their milk.
On Thursday a ten-strong campaign team armed with clipboards and leaflets told shoppers at Tesco rural life is in peril if the situation continues.
Those present included a Crewkerne farmer whose family-run dairy has folded after five generations.
Campaign founder Sally Dare said: "Farmers in the UK get less for their milk than any other country in the EU - how can that be fair?
"All we are asking for is a fair price. If this carries on it's going to have a devastating knock-on effect on the whole rural community."
According to the group, the supermarkets' take from a litre of milk has risen from 0.37p to 15p in 11 years.
Over the same period, the farmers' take fell from 18.5p a litre to 17p, with production costs rising to 21p.
Crewkerne beef farmer Simon Weth-erall told the News he was forced to fold his fifth-generation dairy farm three years ago - despite investing £100,000 on a milk parlour.
He said: "It was very traumatic. The supermarkets are making a profit out of milk - why can't we?"
Sally said a dairy farmer from Hinton St George had suffered a similar fate.
"He couldn't afford to carry on and got out before it got any worse," she said.
Lord Ewen Cameron, of Dillington, a former Countryside Agency chairman, said that the supermarkets' tactics were unsustainable in the long term.
He said: "Sooner or later the dairy farmers are going to go bankrupt and milk will have to be imported which will be much more expensive for the supermarkets.
"We're now in a situation where water is more expensive than milk which is frankly ridiculous."
The Great Milk Robbery group is to call a meeting of dairy farmers nationwide in January.
Sally said support for the campaign has snowballed since its launch at the home of British meat - Smithfield Market in London - on December 1.
"We've had an absolutely brilliant response. The public are right behind us," she said.
