Charlotte Barnes, the Liberal Democrat councillor for Bishop's Castle in Shropshire and also the party's candidate for the Ludlow constituency in May's general election, is encouraging people not to buy milk from stores that fail to pay a fair price to local farmers.
She told the Shropshire Star:
“The long term problem has been the supermarket’s strangle-hold on prices – this is what has pushed our dairy industry into long term decline.
“It’s clear from the research that prices paid vary widely with some paying particularly low sums to farmers.”Interestingly, Charlotte has suggested using the Fairtrade Mark on British produce.
Some will simply welcome the lower prices, but I take this campaign (which echoes Farm Aid in America) as another sign that the Big Supermarket Economy, which has seemed unstoppable for 30 years or more, is running into trouble.
What is to be done, indeed.
ReplyDeleteMilk is present in many things other than the obvious like cheese, yogurt and liquid milk. My favourite boiled sweets contain milk. It can be found in flavourings for many popular food types.
Cow farmers are supported by trade lobbyists such as DairyCo. DairyCo provide consumption stats for the industry: millilitres of milk per person per week, millilitres of yogurt and cream, and grammes of butter and cheese.
http://www.dairyco.org.uk/market-information/dairy-sales-consumption/uk-dairy-consumption/
But the stats are all messed up. The headline figure is liquid milk. How much creamy milk is required to make a pound of butter? How much milk to make a pound of cheese?
Perhaps DairyCo might wish to change its stats to include the milk volume required to suffice product categories?
And the other milk produce? What is it? How much by mass?