I read at the weekend that there are probably 13,000 slaves working in the UK.
The figure, I fear, is distinctly on the low side. Because it does not include 10,000 dairy farmers who to all intents and purposes are working in conditions of slavery themselves.
They are toiling all hours for little or no pay. In fact in the very worst cases – those particularly hardly hit by tumbling milk prices – they are having to pay for the privilege of getting up at 5am to milk the cows because every litre they send off to the processor loses them money.
Money which has to be made up – if they are fortunate enough – from other activities on the farm.
At last the plight of the dairy sector is starting to earn the national media attention it deserves – though not, as usual, thanks to anything the NFU might have done to raise its profile.
But even media attention, even heart-rending stories about farmers losing money or being forced, debt-ridden, out of dairying into an uncertain future, is not going to change anything, at least in the short term.
It’s no good, either, pointing to the scandal of the four pints for 89 pence deals now being offered by some supermarkets – and which I fear in a month or two will look distinctly expensive.
Because shoppers can’t do anything to change this. They can’t hand over some extra cash at the checkout and ask for it to be given to the farmer who produced the milk.
Anyway British shoppers – as we saw from the disgraceful Black Friday scenes – love nothing so much as a bargain, and are therefore hardly going to rise up as a man and demand that they be charged more for one of their staple foods.
I’m afraid the action has to come from the other end of the food chain: the farmers.
The use of the word ‘farmers’ and ‘action’ in the same sentence normally leads straight to a mention of a pressure group led by David Handley, a man who has worked unremittingly and sacrificed goodness knows how many nights’ sleep in an attempt to persuade processors and retailers to pay more.
So far, despite his dedication and determination, all he has been met with are excuses about ‘world market prices’ despite the fact that only a tiny proportion of the milk we produce in this country ends up as a world market commodity.
On the other hand world market prices would come into play in a big way if the current refusal of the industry to pay farmers a decent, sustainable price for their milk led to the collapse of large sections of the sector and we were forced to start importing even more liquid milk than we do.
So what option remains once pressure and persuasion have failed? There is only one, as far as I can see: farmers must simply stop supplying milk.
If every dairy farmer poured milk away for four days the processing sector would be brought to its knees and supermarkets would experience scenes of panic buying that made the ghastly experiences of Black Friday look like a quiet Sunday afternoon.
Of course it goes right against the grain to throw milk away. The usual spineless dairy industry ‘leaders’ would claim that farmers would be breaking their contracts, acting dishonourably. But in my book they would be acting no more dishonourably than a milk processor who offers encouragement to a farmer to borrow a million pounds to invest in a new milking parlour then arbitrarily drops the price so he is no longer able to make the repayments.
There is no honour in the milk industry from the other side of the farm gate to the supermarket shelf, and it’s high time farmers realised that and started playing the rest of the chain at its own game.
The question remains, of course, as to how a milk strike would be organised. The NFU would run a mile from the notion as its dairy board members sought to keep their hands clean and their chances of non-executive directorships alive.
David Handley could muster some support, certainly. But partial support won’t be enough – and we know only too well from history that in the fragmented, jealousy-ridden world of British farming for every two producers who agree to throw their milk away there will be one willing to break ranks and pick up the extra business.
So we are at deadlock, stuck in a situation where the solution to the milk problem is obvious but we lack the coordination and the concerted will to adopt it.
And sadly while the only organisations representing large numbers of dairy farmers are the NFU and the RABDF, both more adept at toadying to the supermarkets than tackling their shameful exploitation of hard-working farmers there’s not much point in anyone else trying to start the ball rolling.
Richard Haddock is a Devon farmer and farm shop owner and chairman of the Conservative Rural Affairs Group.
Source: Western Morning
The figure, I fear, is distinctly on the low side. Because it does not include 10,000 dairy farmers who to all intents and purposes are working in conditions of slavery themselves.
They are toiling all hours for little or no pay. In fact in the very worst cases – those particularly hardly hit by tumbling milk prices – they are having to pay for the privilege of getting up at 5am to milk the cows because every litre they send off to the processor loses them money.
Money which has to be made up – if they are fortunate enough – from other activities on the farm.
At last the plight of the dairy sector is starting to earn the national media attention it deserves – though not, as usual, thanks to anything the NFU might have done to raise its profile.
But even media attention, even heart-rending stories about farmers losing money or being forced, debt-ridden, out of dairying into an uncertain future, is not going to change anything, at least in the short term.
It’s no good, either, pointing to the scandal of the four pints for 89 pence deals now being offered by some supermarkets – and which I fear in a month or two will look distinctly expensive.
Because shoppers can’t do anything to change this. They can’t hand over some extra cash at the checkout and ask for it to be given to the farmer who produced the milk.
Anyway British shoppers – as we saw from the disgraceful Black Friday scenes – love nothing so much as a bargain, and are therefore hardly going to rise up as a man and demand that they be charged more for one of their staple foods.
I’m afraid the action has to come from the other end of the food chain: the farmers.
The use of the word ‘farmers’ and ‘action’ in the same sentence normally leads straight to a mention of a pressure group led by David Handley, a man who has worked unremittingly and sacrificed goodness knows how many nights’ sleep in an attempt to persuade processors and retailers to pay more.
So far, despite his dedication and determination, all he has been met with are excuses about ‘world market prices’ despite the fact that only a tiny proportion of the milk we produce in this country ends up as a world market commodity.
On the other hand world market prices would come into play in a big way if the current refusal of the industry to pay farmers a decent, sustainable price for their milk led to the collapse of large sections of the sector and we were forced to start importing even more liquid milk than we do.
So what option remains once pressure and persuasion have failed? There is only one, as far as I can see: farmers must simply stop supplying milk.
If every dairy farmer poured milk away for four days the processing sector would be brought to its knees and supermarkets would experience scenes of panic buying that made the ghastly experiences of Black Friday look like a quiet Sunday afternoon.
Of course it goes right against the grain to throw milk away. The usual spineless dairy industry ‘leaders’ would claim that farmers would be breaking their contracts, acting dishonourably. But in my book they would be acting no more dishonourably than a milk processor who offers encouragement to a farmer to borrow a million pounds to invest in a new milking parlour then arbitrarily drops the price so he is no longer able to make the repayments.
There is no honour in the milk industry from the other side of the farm gate to the supermarket shelf, and it’s high time farmers realised that and started playing the rest of the chain at its own game.
The question remains, of course, as to how a milk strike would be organised. The NFU would run a mile from the notion as its dairy board members sought to keep their hands clean and their chances of non-executive directorships alive.
David Handley could muster some support, certainly. But partial support won’t be enough – and we know only too well from history that in the fragmented, jealousy-ridden world of British farming for every two producers who agree to throw their milk away there will be one willing to break ranks and pick up the extra business.
So we are at deadlock, stuck in a situation where the solution to the milk problem is obvious but we lack the coordination and the concerted will to adopt it.
And sadly while the only organisations representing large numbers of dairy farmers are the NFU and the RABDF, both more adept at toadying to the supermarkets than tackling their shameful exploitation of hard-working farmers there’s not much point in anyone else trying to start the ball rolling.
Richard Haddock is a Devon farmer and farm shop owner and chairman of the Conservative Rural Affairs Group.
Source: Western Morning
