A levy-paying dairy farmer has concerns about DairyCo activities

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A broadside in the covering letter

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In the light of the present extreme financial difficulties faced by a great number of levy paying farmers please would you let me know the reasons for the choice of location and venue for your annual Outlook conference yet again at One Great George Street in London?

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These premises are described as Westminster’s best kept secret… a remarkable venue serving perfect food with genuinely good service, a central London award-winning destination set in a magnificent four-domed, Edwardian building, a venue like no other, offering flawless service in unique surroundings where guests are looked after as individuals, with the genuine care and unobtrusive attention that makes all the difference.

Would you also let me know how you can consider this to be a suitable and efficient use of levy payers funds?

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Attachment:

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My main concerns about AHDB and DairyCo activities are regarding:

 

• the lack of clarity over the justification for competitiveness (ie: to what extent and between who? farmers, aligned and non aligned producers, other countries etc);
• lack of consideration or promotion of the wider benefits and real value of dairy farming to the wider rural economy;
• retail power over the entire dairy chain gained by the continual promotion of direct retail contracts being seen as the solution to, rather than the cause of, the imbalance of power in the chain (ie siezing on ability to manipulate and distort the market to effectively cap prices paid to non aligned suppliers who are then subject to market forces whenever the market is down)
• acceptance of the fact that retailers are using the very few direct contracts to keep a ceiling on the entire market and certain large corporate retailers could be considered as operating as oligopolies;
• the trend towards developing a one-size-fits-all corporate approach to dairy farming, to accommodate the retailer demands to drive down unit costs and satisfy their PR requirements while enhancing their growth and profits;
• financially restricting the dairy farmers’ freedom to run their own and very individual businesses as they choose, by adopting this one-size-fits-all approach, thus preventing them from having the power to create value within their local communities and the local and wider economies;
• and passing power into the wrong hands by allowing current levy funded activities to be funded by non-independent sources, including others in the supply chain, (which strongly suggests retailers) and placing too much reliance on consultancy companies with conflicting interests who can walk away with a pay off or act as fall guy if things go wrong.

 

Conclusion: certain large corporate concerns and their agents are being given carte blanche to stealthily entrench themselves in every aspect of the dairy producers’ domain, making it even more difficult to achieve a balance of power within the supply chain.