Farmer's appeal for industry protection (From Northwich Guardian)
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Farmer's appeal for industry protection
3:00pm Saturday 4th August 2012 in News By Andrew Moores
A DAIRY farmer believes there will be more protests if the balance of power between supermarkets and producers is not addressed.
Richard Fryer, from Home Farm in Wincham, said an organisation needed to be created to protect the interests of farmers who were being squeezed by big businesses.
He recently took part in protests outside Robert Wiseman Dairies at Trafford Park, which resulted in the company scrapping its plans for a cut in milk prices.
“Unless the momentum we now have is carried forward I can see us being here again in one, two or three years’ time,” he said.
“I hope that what happens is this leads to a producer organisation being set up to address the balance of power with the supermarkets.”
Major dairy processers called off an August 1 price cut which would have caused many farmers to be paid less for milk than it costs to produce.
Robert Wiseman Dairies, Arla Foods, Dairy Crest and First Milk called off the price reductions after pressure from the dairy coalition, including Cheshire’s branch of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU).
Although Richard, 36, was not affected by their plans for price reductions he said farmers had to be united.
“It wasn’t affecting me directly, because my contract is with Sainsbury’s, but we have to stick together,” he said. “I just hope the momentum that this has created is carried on.”
Farmers have been struggling to make ends meet since their pay was slashed in June and said a further cut could have put them out of business.
A spokesman for Robert Wiseman Dairies said: “We welcome whole industry recognition of the difficulties facing farmers and the acknowledgement that fresh milk processors are under severe financial pressure.
“We have confidence that we can work with our customers and farmers to address the obvious challenges that exist.”
- MEMBERS of the dairy coalition have vowed to keep up the pressure on retailers who do not pay dairy farmers a fair price.
The coalition, which includes NFU Cheshire, also thanked the public for their ‘overwhelming support’ for the SOS Dairy campaign.
NFU President Peter Kendall said “Firstly, I want to say a huge thank you to farmers and the general public for the part they have played in supporting this work and for helping the coalition to achieve the impact it has and in such a short time.
“The success we have seen to date in reversing those planned price cuts for August 1 is a sign of real strength and solidarity.
“However, there is still a long way to go and we need to build on the back of the successes from the past few weeks. We will be working hard to complete the contractual code of best practice as soon as possible.
“And rest assured, we will continue to name and shame retailers and other buyers of milk that do not pay their dairy farmers a price for milk that meets the cost of production.”
Comments(2)
tracy manfredi
says...
10:44pm Sun 5 Aug 12
They also have a direct unit on the quality and content of food we receive on the shelves. What we need is to go back to basics, organically locally grown food, no additives, basic but quality food. Reduced fertilisers and chemicals and less water content and hormones pumped into meats.
Yes initially the food would be more expensive but longterm the market should even out and farmers and suppliers both here and abroad should attain a fairer price for the produce provided. Consumers would also benefit particularly from reduced chemicals, additives, hormones and antibiotics that are finding their way into the food chain.
Seems absurd that when you visit the doctors with infection they resist giving antibiotics as they fear we are becoming immune to them. Yet animals are pumped with antibiotics to protect the livestock, fight infection and it enters the food chain or as with hog and chicken farms gets airborne so humans down wind of these farms are exposed to and inhale low dose antibiotics that their bodies develop immunity to. Something is dreadfully wrong with the entire system.
nicksey says...
2:29pm Sun 5 Aug 12
They are driving businesses to bankruptcy at every level. They are destroying their suppliers by their greed and at the other end of the scale they are destroying small businesses that they just obliterate.
Small independent retailers are being crushed by them left right and centre. No longer are they content with their huge warehouse supermarkets they now want mini versions on streets all over the country. We see corner shops and newsagents closing down virtually as soon as a Tesco Express or similar opens up.
They are putting people out of work and destroying the infrastructure of this country.
Not even online businesses are safe from them because misguided search engines like Google give them high search engine positions for just about any product they sell when there are often better but smaller specialists out there that are ignored by the search engine, and why, just because a big supermarket gets more mentions/links on the internet than a smaller independent.
Unless an organisation, maybe the monopolies commission or similar puts a stop to this, this country will have no independent companies, we will be forced to buy everything from these supergroups and we all will have to work for them as well, because no other businesses will be left.
Imagine working for Tesco, being paid by Tesco and then buying everything you need of Tesco. This is the future this country is heading for.
Is it too late to stop the march of the likes of Tesco etc, I see they have their sights on the banks next.
So unless you want this as your future STOP BUYING from the supermarkets, find and support your local independent businesses and starve Tesco out of our towns and villages.