Deal reached to end milk stalemate (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Deal reached to end milk stalemate

4:25pm Monday 23rd July 2012 in National News © Press Association 2013

Agricultural unions say their members are angry at being paid less for the milk they produce

Dairy farmers and processing firms have struck a deal "in principle" to end the bitter stalemate over milk prices.

The two sides met face-to-face at the Royal Welsh show in Powys after a tense past few days, which culminated in several dairy factories being blockaded.

Several agricultural unions say their members are angry at being paid less for the milk they produce by big supermarkets - which aim to keep the cost of dairy products for customers as low as possible.

Following hours of talks, both sides have agreed to sign up to a new voluntary code of practice.

It means firms buying milk, like big supermarkets, would give a "sensible" notice period when changing their prices - so farmers would have enough time to opt out of any deals.

Government officials say they could still bring in legislation at a later date if the code failed to work - but admitted ministers would still not be able to dictate prices.

National Farming Union (NFU) president Peter Kendall said while the announcement gave some hope for the long term it did not solve the issues farmers faced on a daily basis.

He said: "This agreement will give us the architecture we need to make sure that we don't end up with the same dysfunctional markets that are responsible for the dairy crisis we have today.

"The farming community is more united than ever before and the strength of feeling on this dairy issue is increasing and not decreasing.

"We will spend the rest of this month collectively throwing 100% of our efforts into reversing the price cuts from earlier this year and rescinding the ones on the horizon on August 1."

Comments(9)

sweetdreamgirl says...
4:56pm Mon 23 Jul 12

I have great sympathy for the diary farmers having lived amongst them for many years they rise at an ungoldy hour winter and summer to do the milking and its a continual day of work for them,the field sneed harvesting to cater for the winter feeding etc and the supermarkets twist the screw again and again, come on government step in and make it viable for the farmers to make a profit or is it a ploy of the gorvernment not to step in so that all our dairy farmers go to the wall and then we`ll import milk from european countries? wouldn`t put it past them.