In a joint initiative with Farmers For Action (FFA), DairyCo has published a flyer for farmers to hand out to shoppers highlighting the recent collapse in milk prices and outlining what consumers can do to help.
The flyer urges consumers to challenge retailers on how they support British farmers with their sourcing policies and to seek out the Red Tractor on products such as cheese, butter, yoghurt and liquid milk.
Amanda Ball, DairyCo’s head of marketing and communications, said the aim was to produce ‘something practical and positive both farmers and the public can do to support the industry’.
She said the idea came jointly from DairyCo, which wanted to respond to consumer and media interest in the milk market, and FFA chairman David Handley who had contacted her about producing a flyer.
Mr Handley said FFA supporters would be explaining to consumers ‘what we are doing and why we are doing it’. The leaflets will be handed out with ‘striking black and white wristbands’ for farmers to wear.
He said, in some cases, farmers would bring along cows and ‘other gimmicks’ to help raise awareness along the lines of the approach taken during the 2012 SOS Dairy campaign.
Front of house
But, after a break this week following protests at Adams Foods in Staffordshire and a Morrisons depot in Cheshire, Mr Handley said protests would continue alongside the ‘front of house’ campaign.
“We have got no choice, to be honest,” he said, adding that farmers ‘still have the stomach for protests’, as demonstrated by the 400 protestors who turned up to Adams Foods last week.
Mr Handley insisted protests were justified as the global market downturn alone could not account for the 7-9ppl cuts suffered by dairy farmers.
But he claimed the direct action was behind a number of milk buyers not cutting their December price any further.
““We have stopped some of the cuts but we haven’t stopped them all. It has made people sit back and the publicity has been phenomenal.
“I believe the lack of cuts in December is down to one thing. Retailers and processors do not want any disruption in the run up to Christmas,” he said.
But a spokesman for Muller UK and Ireland Group denied the protests had anything to do with its price remaining static.
“Most hard working dairy farmers are not fooled by militant farming leaders who claim credit for market-related decisions,” he said.
Publicity
FFA’s campaign in response to the dairy crisis, including its supermarket campaign, was praised during a debate on the current state of the dairy industry in the House of Commons on Wednesday.
Liberal Democrat MP Tessa Munt FFA’s protests had generated positive publicity.
“That sort of thing gets on to the news, and those protests have always proved peaceful and, certainly in my area, have taken place with the agreement of the police,” she said.
“I particularly welcome the move that Farmers For Action has made to produce stickers, posters and leaflets that it will distribute outside supermarkets so that the customers, who are the end of the line, can connect the dots and understand the difficulties faced by the producers, who are at the very beginning of the line.
“Asking farmers to plan when they are being offered prices that are well below the cost of production seems desperately unfair.”
Source: Farmers Guardians