Fair Trade for UK food producers – a lost cause?

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In 2006, Michael Hart [Small and Family Farmers’ Alliance] – following negotiations with the Soil Association & the Fairtrade Foundation – emailed:

“While I continue to like the idea of fair trade for UK farmers (in fact for all farmers). I suspect that, in order to work, it would have to be done by the UK farming organisations working together . . . 

In 2007-2008 there was active campaigning for a fair deal for food producers see details here:

• The Farmers’ Union of Wales,
• Farm,
• National Federation of Women’s Institutes,
• Church of Scotland,
• NFU,
• Farmers Guardian,
• Country Living magazine,
• The Church of England’s Ethical Investment Advisory Group,
• The National Pig Association,
• NFU Scotland,
• The Scottish Fair Trade Forum,
• Farmers for Action,
• And MPs Lindsay Hoyle, Roger William, Andrew George, Elfyn Llwyd, AWP Mick Bates

Letters to the NFU’s farming organisations, each representing producers in different sectors and to individual food producers, hoping for a wider input got no such result.

Michael Hart has been proved right and the sad conclusion of the editor of this website is that Fair Trade for UK food producers is indeed a lost cause, despite his campaigning and the stalwart efforts of the late Andrew Hemming, David Handley Kathleen Calvert and William Taylor.

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Paving the way for the factory dairy?

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Alastair Driver of the Farmers Guardian reported earlier this month that the Dairy Coalition – NFU, NFU Cymru, NFU Scotland, the Tenant Farmers Association, the Women’s Food and Farming Union and the Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers – has asked Farming Minister David Heath to ‘call in’ the 15% of milk buyers failing to implement the voluntary code on milk contracts.

NFU chief dairy adviser Robert Newbery said that the greatest resistance was coming from some of ‘big middle ground liquid processors’ who ‘don’t want to know’.

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Dairy UK director general Jim Begg said that the approach of the dairy companies had been ‘both responsible and constructive’.

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Three days ago Mr Driver showed figures collated by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) indicating that more than 30 farmers quit the industry in April alone in England and Wales. The number of dairy farmers in England and Wales has fallen by more than 40% from more than 18,000 in 2002.

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The Kingshay Dairy Manager costings show total purchased feed costs increased by 1.27 pence a litre over the past year, but milk price only went up 0.54ppl.

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DairyCo’s recent Farmer Intentions Survey showed that the current average farmgate milk price of around 30-31ppl is lagging behind the AMPE (Actual Milk Price Equivalent) market indicator, currently in excess of 38ppl.

NFU dairy board chairman Mansel Raymond said that if the leaving rate carries on for three months it will be serious: “The milk price has to go higher. The industry now needs that positive signal to move forward to increase production and invest.”

The Independent reports that an announcement on a timetable for plans for a farm in Foston, Derbyshire, stocking 25,000 pigs, is expected later this week. A decision on whether a 1000-cow mega-dairy near Welshpool can go ahead is also expected shortly.

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Joyce Watson, Member of the Welsh Assembly for Mid and West Wales, said: “With the full extent of the horsemeat scandal still coming to light, consumers want food they can trace and trust. Industrial-scale farms would be a big step in the wrong direction – bad for cows, bad for farmers, bad for consumers and bad for the environment.”

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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 . . .

 

 

Has anyone managed to access the Farmers Guardian dairy crisis letter templates?

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Effort 1

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Used the link given: http://www.farmersguardian.com/dairycrisis

 

Was required to sign in and did.

 

Was not returned to site.

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Effort 2

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Went to home page

Was required to sign in and did.

Arrived at:

 

 

Clicked on link and was then required to sign in again! The whole process repeated with no result.

 

Gave up and wrote this.

 

 

“Our survival depends on a strong government and a thriving agricultural industry”

 

Another fine letter in the Farmers Guardian from a Welsh farmer – no stranger to this site – see http://fairdealfooduk.com/?page_id=1331

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As it is not on the FG’s website key paragraphs are quoted here:

“It is common knowledge that dairy farmers are under great pressure, and to read that producer prices have fallen by a further 2p per litre from an already low level, can only be classed as disastrous . . .

“We are told most of the major buyers are now only paying 26p/litre, while it is common knowledge producers claim they need 30p/litre to break even . . . ”

Note here that the farming press recently reported a leading farm accountant saying that an analysis of a sample of farm accounts from 2011/12 showed that the average “real” cost of production was 37.09p/litre – without the single payment. 

“The farmers’ selling price has been reduced, the processors seem to be struggling and are being taken over by foreign firms, while the mighty supermarkets are maintaining their excessive margins with no regard to the future of the prime producer  . . .

“In the interest of the milk producer, consumer and to safeguard future production, monopoly powers must be taken away from the supermarkets . . .

 

“Our survival depends on a strong government and a thriving agricultural industry. We do not have the latter at the moment. Do we have the former?”

 

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