Price of milk

Oops! Link didn't work but it's reported in all the press & TV. Sorry!

I think it's f*****g terrible and I don't usually swear and NEVER use the f word!
What is happening to this country?
We can pay sports men obscene salaries but can't pay our hardworking farmers a decent amount for milk!!

Any farmers here?
If so, I'm all with you!

Don't shop at Asda, Morrisons or, oddly, I am told, The Co-op who are the companies that are refusing to budge on price. Sainsburys etc have a more flexible contract with them.
Lets face it, if milk is incredibly cheap in the supermarket the farmers are probably not getting a fair price for it.
Can't follow the link. Farmers are struggling because they can't get cattle out into soggy fields and having to buy food for them.

I use waitrose, is that ok? The price seems the same.

How much does milk cost to buy? Have no idea as we don't use it.

Those cuts would not affect farmers supplying Tesco, Sainsbury's, Marks & Spencer or Waitrose as they are paid directly by the supermarkets. (from BBC)

I would be happy to pay more for British milk, I think it's the supermarkets who are forcing the price down. Unfortunately some people want cheap milk and cheap battery eggs and don't care about animal welfare or our dairy farmers.

I was listening to some numpty on the Jeremy Vine show today who said that if farmers get out of dairy because times are tough, they can always get back in again if they want to. What utter rubbish. It takes years to build up a good dairy herd and buildings and equipment cost a fortune. Sons and daughters who might have wanted to carry on the family farm will have had to look for work elsewhere. Animal welfare is high on the list of a good dairy farmer's priorities.

The companies involved could easily afford to pay a fair price without putting the cost up to the customer. This is nothing to do keeping prices down in the store and everything to do with maximising profits at the expense of people who would find it very difficult to fight back.

Some land is only suitable for pasture. Farmers cant just come out of cows one year and go into grain or stop sowing grain and start sowing cabbages, different types of land, weather and rainfall characteristics all circumscribe their choices.

Perhaps the pie making factory in Scotland that is closing could start making fridges and cookers instead and then next year if pie demand hasnt picked up and the fridge market has died they could start making clothes. It is no sillier.

Not a Dairy farmer but we are a family of Dairy engineers (install and fix milking equipment). Many of our customers have given up. Getting up at some ungodly hour 365 days a year to be paid less than it costs them to produce a high quality natural product has taken them to despair. They do not have the power to bargain since the demise of the Milk Marketing Board. No one markets milk any more (when did you last see an advert). I was among the protestors at the Yorkshire Show. Everyone was very angry. The minister said in London had they done everything to reduce their costs. I could go on all day but suffice it to say that all they want is a fair price for their product not to be considered special cases.

Of course it is all wrong that dairy companies and supermarkets can buy milk for less than it costs farmers to produce it.

On a related matter, newpapers and other media were all having a jolly good laugh because an agriculture minister didn't know the price of a pint of milk. Can you still buy milk by the pint?

They probably mean the 1/2 litre absent. My son explained an arrangement they have in Tesco - he has a friend who is a local manager there. Every few days, large containers of milk with purple tops will appear on the shelves and they are ridiculously cheap - work out at about 50p a litre. This milk is surplus to quotas that the supermarket buys up, and is made up of organic and ordinary milk. Apparently, a lot of organic milk goes into the ordinary milk when demand slows down. The supermarkets really do hold the poor dairy farmers to ransom.

It's about time the farmers got together to process their own milk thus cutting out the middlemen. It seems to me that as global business grows, populations and Governments have less and less control over raw materials.
In time, if there are fewer diary farmers, the price of milk will rise and we shall end up carrying the can (as usual).
I do not have sympathy for large land owners who manage to claim huge benefits from the EU but I am concerned about the smaller farmers who seem to receive the rough end of the stick. As for the big supermarkets.....

There are restrictions (could be EU but I'm not sure) on who can act as a milk supplier and how much of the market can be allocated.

This item has really annoyed me. Its morally wrong to offer a producer less than it costs to produce something. Its also darn foolish because in a few years time no-one will be producing milk in this country unless we support our farmers and small dairies by buying their produce. I have decided to put money where mouth is and will be buying my milk locally or from a more ethical supplier, I believe the Co-op are ok as are M&S and Waitrose. Yes its going to be a few pence more but this has got me so cross!

I have been having my milk delivered for the first time in many years this week. A local dairy sent out their milkman a couple of weeks ago to see if there was any interest. So far, so good - today, I had eggs delivered and they are very large, although the box says medium, and very fresh. Same price as Tesco for the milk, and the eggs are 10p cheaper than their medium ones. Good value, I think.

I wish we had that opportunity here. I'd certainly be prepared to pay more for milk as it's such a useful food and the farmers should be paid accordingly. The trouble is farmers do not have celebrity status - although there's Jimmy what's his name I suppose who could wield some clout. Looking after a dairy herd is expensive and time consuming and should be recognised as a vital resource for the country. If they can spend money on the Olympics............

Yes when I expect they meant half a litre (which is less than a pint), but they were all making merry because he didn't know the price of a pint of milk. Therefore, they were also, in my opinion, making fools of themselves.

The bottles I buy from Asda contain 2 pints (1136ml) and this is clearly indicated - in fact TWO PINTS is printed in raised letters on the bottle itself.

They are all buzzing around in a flap absent. I bet half of them don't even know how to make a cup of tea, let alone how much their pint of milk costs.

I don't think Jimmy Doherty would be much of an ambassador for dairy farming, goldengirl as he's relatively new to farming and his celebrity status is largely based on quick return farming like pork sausages. Adam Henson on Countryfile is the best of the lot when it comes to engaging the public with farming issues and although he's not a diary farmer he has a finger on the pulse and is respected throughout the industry. Dairy farmers have been struggling since we went into the EU.

Agree about Adam Henson, Merlotgran. He really does explain farming issues in a straightforward way, and is likeable with it.

So, I wonder why he's not said his piece - or has he?

Is there any milk on the shelves that could be considered giving farmers a proper or reasonable return? Cravendale? Yeo Valley?

Is it better to buy whole milk?

I was brought up in a farming community with the local secondary school having a farm on site and whilst I loved visiting the animals I understood the food chain. I remember being shown how to milk a cow. She was very patient with my efforts! Unfortunately I've lived in suburbia for so long now that things have changed out of recognition - the school farm is now a housing estate - and I'm very out of touch.