4. Farmers for Action and the NFU

 

Kathleen Calvert: Farmers for Action and WI member, and Fair Deal Food Council adviser, writes:

 

I have followed what is a very political dairy situation actively since 2007, avidly observing the performance of both the NFU and FFA.

How many times have we seen the NFU huff and puff and make angry declarations to the press, stating only the obvious and issuing caveats that are never followed through properly, supporting unhelpful initiatives that never just come to fruition, and never acknowledging other organisations as having made any significant contribution.

It is plain to see that the NFU runs with both the hare and the hounds yet takes the lions share of the credit for anything it is involved with when other organisations like FFA and NFWI with whom they share a platform, have made significant, if not far greater contributions towards resolving the difficulties of dairy producers caused largely by an extremely distorted internal market.

The retailers may hide behind the skirts of the British Retail Consortium, the processors behind Dairy UK. Both organisations undermine producers.

Farmers do not naturally have militant inclinations yet must battle against the overwhelming and unfair power of the retailers knowing every other course of action has been tried.

Mr Handley leaves no stone unturned. He is a strong and skilful negotiator, assertive yet realistic and not afraid to speak his mind.

 

Love him or hate him, I would sooner put my trust in Mr Handley and his team to stand up for dairy producers and negotiate a fair outcome than rely on the NFU who will still be chatting in the harbour when the ship has sailed.

 

 

 

 

 

Cheese contracts: the next issue to be placed before the general public?

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Ian Potter remarks in his newsletter (12^th April) that some current retail cheese contracts look “irresponsible” and fail to recognise the upward trend in farm gate milk prices.

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He continues: On the front page of today’s Farmers Guardian the BRC have been allowed to get away with the comment “but farmers need to acknowledge cheese is a globally traded commodity with prices set on the world stage”. I realise they are there to defend retailers but surely not to tell porkies. The British Retail Consortium (BRC) needs educating . . .

Extracts:

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Out of the 410,000 tonnes or so of cheese we consume in the UK we produce around 320,000 tonnes with 80,000 tonnes coming from Ireland, a bit from Holland and New Zealand.

British and, for that matter, Irish cheese is not globally traded and if members of the BRC want to import their cheese from the USA or South Africa then crack on lads. (Ed: note fatalities in USA due to imported cheese, reported in December.) With ASDA having found bute in its Smart Price corned beef produced in France, and the whole horsemeat scandal with 50,000 tonnes of Dutch beef products recalled, when will the retailers, discounters and food service learn*.

The main customer for Irish cheese is the UK and the lion’s share of UK produced cheese is domestically consumed.

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As the Scottish NFU President Nigel Miller stated this week, “I suspect the general public will be disappointed to hear that, at the moment, the rewards from cheese production are largely filling retailer coffers” and that the cheese market is dysfunctional.

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*Earlier references: in view of the recent horse meat scandal, FFA Chairman David Handley is calling on all CEOs of the retail industry to clearly show country of origin on all purchased cheese. Alistair Driver in the Farmers Guardian adds: “Mr Handley claims ‘double standards’ were at play as imported cheese often does not meet the standards asked of British farmers, for example, when it comes to requirements on cell count levels which measure milk quality and bacteria levels . . .

 

 

Scientist: supermarkets are screwing farmers into the ground

In 2011 Dr Mark Holmes, Senior Lecturer in Veterinary Preventive Medicine at Cambridge (right) warned about one of the many ill effects of supermarkets putting dairy farmers” under relentless financial pressure” from supermarkets to produce milk as cheaply as possible, after his team had identified MRSA in milk.

Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs [Defra] initially didn’t believe this finding, saying that we don’t have MRSA in the dairy industry in this country.

Andrew Opie, food director at the British Retail Consortium, said: “It’s ludicrous to blame supermarkets. Currently, the top 13 best paying milk contracts are all contracts paid by supermarkets.

Yesterday the same team published another study led by Dr Holmes in Eurosurveillance, a European peer-reviewed scientific journal devoted to the epidemiology, surveillance, prevention and control of communicable diseases.

He told a press conference yesterday it was a “credible hypothesis” that overuse of antibiotics had led to the emergence of new strain, MRSA ST398, adding:

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“If farmers were not screwed into the ground by the supermarkets and allowed to get a fair price for their milk they would be able to use fewer antibiotics”.

 

 

Stop press: adjudicator will have power to impose fines – Minister, “We have heard the views of the stakeholders”

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The ‘groceries adjudicator’, to be appointed next year, will be able to fine the country’s top chains if they use their dominant position to treat farmers and other suppliers unfairly. The maximum fine will be set on the recommendation of the first adjudicator, within six months of new legislation being passed.

It was proposed that, initially, the adjudicator would only have the power to name and shame supermarkets should they breach Groceries Code, but farmers, NGOs and other suppliers successfully pressed for the adjudicator to be allowed to impose financial penalties on firms as soon as the post is established.

 

British Retail Consortium comment: this flies in the face of common sense

 

British Retail Consortium director general Stephen Robertson said: “We’ve long maintained that the power to impose fines is unnecessary and heavy-handed and should be kept in reserve. This flies in the face of common sense and is yet another piece of disproportionate legislation aimed at food retailers.

Competition Minister Jo Swinson said financial penalties were expected to be applied only in cases of serious breach, with naming and shaming used in most cases.

 

The power to impose fines sends a strong message to retailers that compliance with the code is not optional

 

‘Where supermarkets are breaking the rules with suppliers and treating them unfairly, the adjudicator will make sure that they are held to account. We have heard the views of the stakeholders who were keen to give the adjudicator a power to fine, and recognise that this change would give the adjudicator more teeth to enforce the Groceries Code. We expect fines to be used as a last resort, but the fact that the adjudicator has the power to impose them will send a strong message to retailers that compliance with the code is not optional.

‘I am confident that these changes will mean that the adjudicator is able to ensure fair play in the food supply chain and keep the industry growing.’

 

To download the official documents go to http://news.bis.gov.uk/Press-Releases/Groceries-Adjudicator-to-have-new-power-to-fine-supermarkets-68464.aspx

One of many news sources: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/9722048/Supermarkets-face-fines-for-unfair-practice-under-new-regulator.html

 

Supermarkets are perfectly capable of policing themselves . . . ?

The British Retail Consortium has long argued that the sector is perfectly capable of policing itself, but countless anecdotal evidence and documents such as the NFU’s Catalyst for Change report (link leads to pdf file) suggest that is far from the truth. 

 

Michael Barker, editor of the Fresh Produce Journal, surmises suppliers won’t begrudge the big-bucks salary for BRC’s new director general (opposite), if the adjudicator brings about real change in monitoring the grocery sector.

Peers passed the Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill following a brief third reading debate (link to video) on 24 July 2012.

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The bill would create a Groceries Code Adjudicator to oversee the relationship between large supermarket chains and their suppliers, following concerns expressed by the Competition Commission that many retailers may have been in breach of the Groceries Code. Business, Innovation and Skills Minister Baroness Wilcox told peers that a voluntary code of practice aimed at ending a dispute between diary farmers and milk processors was expected to be in place by the end of August.

 

Barker continues: 

“The new body should have the capability to stamp out abuses of power, but there is one thing that suppliers are also going to have to accept: they will have to be prepared to make anonymous submissions of evidence.

“That has been the Achilles’ heel of the Groceries Supply Code of Practice and, unless suppliers are prepared to trust in the system and come forward, it’s hard to see how much difference it will make.

“A more proactive adjudicator should help, but if it isn’t pointed in the direction of the smoke it will be tough for it to extinguish the fire . . . but suppliers will still need more convincing that real change is just around the corner.”

 

Will the BRC’s new director general Helen Dickinson, arriving from accountants KPMG – which has its own problems here and in the States – be a force for good?

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