Price of milk

So glad to see the press release by the Co-op, considering their usually decent set of ethics I was surprised to see that they were linked to the supermarkets that were offering such a low price. Now they are being much more sensible and decent about it. I can honestly say I would not mind paying a few pence a litre for decent british milk. I treat myself to some really good local stuff for rice puddings etc but its not always in the local shop, so to rely on it for day to day supplies could be a bit of a problem.

Really scaly individual this morning on Radio 4, representing the retail trade. His arguments went: We're not the only ones exploiting the farmers; the government is worse than us; we buy a lot of milk abroad anyway; farmers who are able to get a contract with the firms supplying supermarkets are actually very fortunate and should be thankful. For once, Humphries got my unmixed admiration.

Lilygran, its disgusting that certain firms import milk, all this profit for any cost has caused real heartache for some producers. I beleive that Morrisons are know re-thinking their policies which is a great result.
I do beleive that we do need to think more about buying less but better quality food and making it go further - as our mothers and grandmothers did.

I agree with you HildaW. The amounts we have now are far too much and too rich. I keep thinking back to the amounts we ate when I was a child - I always had hunger pangs before each meal, we rarely had seconds, and we were well nourished and healthy.

If we don't start paying the right amount to the farmers, our dairy industry will have to compete with european milk flooding the market.

Don't touch the stuff, but it does seem very, very wrong.

jeni has already been very eloquent. I agree wholeheartedly. I'm with our farmers. If the price of milk increases and the farmer benefits, so be it. Is there a petition that we can add our names to?

The Co-op is not being particularly ethical in this instance. It has agreed to put up the amount it pays for a pint of milk to 29p – this is what it costs the farmers to produce a pint of milk. It didn't say that in its press release.