Groups have been organising demonstrations via social media while at the same time garnering public support for their plight.
Last night (Tuesday) fifth generation beef and sheep farmer Jon King took a cow to Morrisons in Wells, Somerset, and left it outside with Wells MP James Heappey, while he and a group of other farmers cleared the supermarket shelves of milk.
“This is all about gaining momentum for the awareness of the campaign. Agricultural commodity prices are down across the board, this is not just about milk, but about lamb, cereals, everything.
“We are protesting peacefully, we are not out to wreck things, we want to try and prove our point and get supermarkets to wake up.
«There is massive discontent in the industry. We can’t work for nothing, even though many farmers do. We put our animals before everything else but when things get to the stage where we are working for less than nothing, then that is not sustainable. People go to work and earn £100 a day and our industry is having to pay £50 just to do a days’ work.»
Mr King said he did not think the farming unions were strong enough to turn the situation around.
«We are a small fish in a very big sea,” he added.
«Supermarkets are offering fair trade products from around the world but we need to start looking at our own affairs closer to home. We need fair trade here. We need a fair price. If supermarkets doubled the price of milk people would buy it. This is about raising awareness amongst the public and pushing the supermarkets into action.”
Milk Trolley Challenge protests have taken place across the country, from Asda and Lidl in Preston, to Morrisons in Shrewsbury. Scottish farmers targeted several supermarkets, including in Kilmarnock and Ayr.
Groups in Northern Ireland have also targeted supermarkets in Coleraine, Strabane and Omagh over milk and lamb prices.
Andrew Opie, director of food and sustainability at the British Retail Consortium defended supermarkets, adding the retail industry ‘paid a fair price with individual retailers using different payment models’.
“We understand the current frustration of farmers but it is wrong to blame retailers,” said Mr Opie.
“Retailers are giving great support to dairy farmers through collaboration with groups of farmers to get the best milk price to clear labelling of the country of origin of cheese and butter.
“Unfortunately, this only helps a proportion of farmers as much of the UK’s dairy output is subject to the global market and the recent downturn has meant prices have fallen for many farmers.”
Source: FG Insight
