21 August 2012

2 minute read

Europe

Protests are continuing across the UK, as more than 100 farmers gathered outside Asda earlier this week.

Farmers for Action seems confident that their message is being listened to.

"During this week progress has been made with a number of dairy companies who now appear to be recognising the current crisis. We now need to build on that in the form of money in our milk cheques," said a press statement from the group.

Arla Farmers Milk Partnership (AFMP) issued the following statement: "AFMP shares the coalition’s concerns regarding the current situation that dairy farmers find themselves in , a combination of escalating feed prices, extreme weather, and dairy commodity values being at a low point in their cycle, leave producers facing the forthcoming winter from an unprecedented position."

It has been reported that Farmers for Action are not only seeking support from European organisations but have requested a meeting with United Dairy Farmers, ahead of this week's milk auction.

Farmers for Action has said that protests will continue until retailers and processors agree to pay a fair price to producers.

A deadline of 1 September has been set, to see all money that was removed from milk cheques in May and June to be reinstated.

"Low prices paid to farmers will achieve one thing – lower supplies of milk with the effect of increasing imports of dairy products into the UK. A fair price would ensure a good supply of milk to UK milk processors for them to be able to go out into the big wide world and sell our quality product at competitive prices, that is if they are prepared to take a little out of their margin rather than take everything off UK dairy farmers."

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