Price of milk

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.

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?

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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............

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.

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!

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.

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.....

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.