Farmers take milk off shelves at large supermarkets Re price of milk

[eggsarascal]

I sympathise with them because as individuals they are powerless o stand up to the big boys but they must belong to an organisation that can create some havoc. If I was not happy with the money I got for my logs I don't think I would buy them and give them away. Who is that hurting exactly ? Who is even more out of pocket.

 

Dairy farmers used to be part of a big organisation, The Milk Marketing Board..

 

Have a guess who did away with that.

[mendiplogs]

I sympathise with them because as individuals they are powerless o stand up to the big boys but they must belong to an organisation that can create some havoc. If I was not happy with the money I got for my logs I don't think I would buy them and give them away. Who is that hurting exactly ? Who is even more out of pocket.

 

Hi Steve if this was going on in France they would I do not say it's right mind but oh what do you do I think before too long to me farms around with thousands of cows thanks John

[harrythecat178]

Farmers have always been ones to moan at a hard life but I think they are now justified to be fed up. I was discussing this with my farmer neighbour today , one of the most progressive farmers in the area. He has a mixed farm about 600 acres with milk, beef, and cereals . He was expecting a milk cheque this month a little over half what it was this time last year, his wheat is 40% down in price and he cannot interest anyone in his straw, normally £60-70 per ton. In this area, farmers are one of the biggest employers and nearly all are very good at what they do.

3 years ago milk was £1.69 for 4 pints in supermarkets and we all bought it and didnt complain, now its under a £1 in many places.

We all like cheap bread , milk and meat on the supermarket shelves but it has to come at a price and I doubt the Tesco's of this world are loosing out.

The supermarkets need set a minimum price for milk and stick to it perhaps 40p pint and ensure the farmer gets 50% of that. Otherwise a way of life will vanish forever and the countryside will become an abandoned mess.

[mendiplogs]

Farmers have always been ones to moan at a hard life but I think they are now justified to be fed up. I was discussing this with my farmer neighbour today , one of the most progressive farmers in the area. He has a mixed farm about 600 acres with milk, beef, and cereals . He was expecting a milk cheque this month a little over half what it was this time last year, his wheat is 40% down in price and he cannot interest anyone in his straw, normally £60-70 per ton. In this area, farmers are one of the biggest employers and nearly all are very good at what they do.

3 years ago milk was £1.69 for 4 pints in supermarkets and we all bought it and didnt complain, now its under a £1 in many places.

We all like cheap bread , milk and meat on the supermarket shelves but it has to come at a price and I doubt the Tesco's of this world are loosing out.

The supermarkets need set a minimum price for milk and stick to it perhaps 40p pint and ensure the farmer gets 50% of that. Otherwise a way of life will vanish forever and the countryside will become an abandoned mess.

 

Hi mate not good at all thanks Jon

[shavey]

Dairy farmers used to be part of a big organisation, The Milk Marketing Board..

 

Have a guess who did away with that.

 

Exactly :thumbup:

 

What is needed is a off com watchdog committee similar to what gas , electric and telephone have in place

 

Some of the luckier farmers have good contracts with local cheese , butter yoghurt makers :thumbup:

[mendiplogs]

Exactly :thumbup:

 

What is needed is a off com watchdog committee similar to what gas , electric and telephone have in place

 

Some of the luckier farmers have good contracts with local cheese , butter yoghurt makers :thumbup:

 

Hi Andrew there are farmers here like that here mate thanks Jon

[openspaceman]

Dairy farmers used to be part of a big organisation, The Milk Marketing Board..

 

Have a guess who did away with that.

 

The milk marketting board was the government organisation that bought all the milk and decided how much was sold onto the liquid market, the rest was sold to factories, exported or dried and stored. Then after problems with intervention and butter mountains they were abolished. It's a very long time since I helped on a dairy farm, then a farmer and herdman just about earned a living from 35 cows, infested with mastitus.

 

somewhen the system was deregulated and a quota system was in place, this was an artificial construct to contol production but created a market in these intangible quotas which one had to buy to be able to expand, this was necessary to remain competitive and manage 200 cows per man. This in turn lead to the need to invest millions in milking parlours.

 

In the face of losing the guaranteed market of the MMB farmers formed a co operative , Milk Marque, which was ruled anti competitive by the monopolies commission, so was split into three and other companies piled in, The supermarkets and imported Polish milk picked off the smaller milk companies and bankrupted the co ops.

[csservices]

There you go that explains it pretty clearly, dairy farms have been going out of business at an average of 5 a week for a good few years now, I've never farmed dairy, I use to farmers which had the exact same problem, when I first kept them when I was at school you could expect £1.50+ a kilo, think highest it's got in last few years is maybe 75p per kilo when all the inputs have gone up, I had until 2 years ago a herd of Gloucestershire old spots, had pretty much all the blood lines some of which are very rare now but in the 3-4 years we had them feed went from £5 to nearly £10 per bag at its highest and yet the price of the pigs didn't move and at the end we were selling 8 week old pedigree weaners at £25 each which is half what they needed to be to make anything them.

[michaelf]

My uncle was a dairy farmer of a herd of 600. They all got sold last week at the market. I know he was getting 7p a litre for the last 18months. Dairy has been in the family for over 60 years and now we have none. It's a bad time for farmers. We may get subsidies and the rest but the last 5 years or so they haven't covered the price of feed we pay a year. We are having to sell our Heffers and store cattle younger to cover cost. All we want is a fair price for our produce. Just like selling logs no one sells logs at a loss. We don't wanna sell our beef sheep or milk at a loss. Fair price for farmers is all we want.

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

Was that an accurate report on Countryfile a couple of months ago - something like 25% of a dairy herd is lost to mastitis??

 

Could it be that overly intensified milking is (a) not particularly good for the beast (which has been bred to massively over produce) and (b) leading to a surplus of product over demand resulting in low return?

 

Those are genuine questions, maybe someone can add some detail??

 

I'm not sure there's any basis to support protest but rather a national review of production (bearing in mind this is an industry that appears to be failing DESPITE colossal subsidy)

 

If true 25% lost to mastitis, lucky there are still enough badgers left to blame.

 

What will happen after the badgers have carried the can? What next?

 

At some point someone may just realise there's no sense subsidising an industry that is unable to achieve break-even.