When will British Fairtrade milk be available for Fairtrade coffee?

With great fanfare the Co-operative News announced that Fairtrade Fortnight (24 February to 8 March) has started, continuing the movement’s campaign for cocoa farmers to get a living wage.

Why shouldn’t the Fairtrade principle be applied to all British food producers?

A record going back to 1999 reports that MP Lindsay Hoyle (now the Speaker) initiated EDM 166: Farmgate Prices, calling on the Government to work with supermarkets to ensure that UK dairy farmers have a minimum farmgate price set for milk.

Ten years ago the Farmers Weekly reported that PM David Cameron said farmers should get a fair deal for the food they produce, adding that there have been many complaints from farmers about the aggressive behaviour of supermarkets. As a FAIR TRADE MILK Facebook entry says: Give farmers Fair prices for MILK

Tessa Munt, when MP for Wells (Somerset), decided to investigate a Fairtrade milk scheme for UK dairy farmers (link to her website article now down).

She pointed out that the Fairtrade Foundation currently works to support farmers in the developing world to ensure that they get a fair price for their products, but there is clearly a need to do the same ‘at home’ in the UK. Tessa said:

“I have spoken previously about how vitally important it is to keep dairy farming alive and to make sure our farmers get a fair price for their products.  As a nation, we should concentrate on food security and be able to feed ourselves.  I really believe a Fairtrade milk scheme would be an effective way to ensure that the farmers are protected and the consumer knows at a glance that he or she is supporting British farming when shopping for milk or milk products” 

A Moseley correspondent found a good link to a shorter article which also contains an effective video.

Hazel Paterson’s article in the Metro pointed out that if one strolls down any supermarket aisle, Fairtrade items like bananas from Columbia, coffee from Indonesia and chocolate from Ecuador on the shelves can be seen – then stroll down the chilled dairy aisle and see litres and litres of cut price milk – four pints for just £1.10 in Asda.

She reminds us that dairy farmers were protected by the Milk Marketing Board which set the price of milk paid to farmers and ensured a fair price at the gate which meant a fair price on the shelves. After the government abolished it, it was divided into several processors who could choose what price they paid the farmers.

For years many British dairy farmers have been going out of business and if the others don’t get a fair price, the well managed pastures and meadow will be replaced by the arable land required to grow cattle feed and huge farms with massive slurry lakes containing gallons and gallons of the waste that they produce.

At the end of May last year, the Times and Financial Times reported that the Co-operative Group raised £300 million from a bond issue sold only to institutional investors guaranteeing them 5% interest. Meanwhile many of their British dairy farmers were being offered a price which makes milk production ‘financially unviable’.

There has been no indication that the minister, George Eustice, who was not well-received at the NFU conference in Birmingham earlier this month, has any awareness of this short-sighted and unjust situation.

Year after year government, the co-operative movement and the Fairtrade Foundation ignore British farmers and all those who want to put fairly traded milk in their Fairtrade coffee.

 

 

 

 

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British food producers want fairly traded milk in their Fairtrade coffee

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Fairtrade Fortnight – start now?

 

 

The Fair Deal Food Council echoes the Fairtrade Foundation’s call to the British public to Go Further for Fairtrade in 2013 – to look after the food we love and the people who produce it. Without our support now, farmers in Britain face a difficult and uncertain future.

Fairtrade Fortnight (25 February – 10 March) will call on the British public to Go Further for Fairtrade in 2013 to look after the food we love and the people who grow it. Without our support now, farmers in developing countries face a difficult and uncertain future.

The Fair Deal Food UK Campaign seeks the security of knowing British food producers will receive a fair price for their crop and the long term stability that comes from having a better relationship with their buyer. 

Fairtrade provides small farmers abroad with the security of knowing they’ll receive a fair price for their crop and the long term stability that comes from having a better relationship with their buyer.

Ed and Pippa (no picture available) are the 5th & 6th members of the Fair Deal Food Council

 

The Fairtrade invitation

 

 

 Yes: if the march also supports British food producers!

 Fairtrade Fortnight 2013 runs from Mon 25 February to Sun 10 March.

 

 

Back Fairtrade Fortnight – and fair prices for British food producers

As the Co-operative Group undertakes to supply only Fairtrade bananas, DEFRA minister Caroline Spelman is supporting Fairtrade Fortnight and urging people to take a fair trade food approach when shopping. 

Fairtrade Foundation: the free market has failed many 

Richard Anstead of the Fairtrade Foundation argues that the free market has comprehensively failed and Fairtrade is slowly helping to restore the balance.“If producers aren’t empowered to demand and secure a stable cost of production, then the traditional market is failing them,” he says. “Many producers are unable to enter a relationship where they can negotiate a price; they are price-takers rather than price-setters.”

This is precisely the situation for many food producers in England.

Fairly traded British milk and vegetables 

The Fresh Produce Journal notes that there is ‘a distinct lack of Fairtrade vegetables in the marketplace’. Then give some accreditation – a Fair Deal Mark has been suggested in the past – to buyers who give a price covering production costs plus to food producers.

Fairtrade Fortnight: Take a Step for 2012 

 The theme for Fairtrade Fortnight is “Take a Step for 2012”. The Fair Trade Foundation should urge people to require fairly traded vegetables with their fairly traded chicken and fairly traded milk in their Fairtrade coffee.

Support fair trade for British food producers – as well as those abroad – and give a much-needed boost to the country’s rural economy.