Gary's views

Gary's weekly views

Each week an article by Gary has appeared in the Plympton Plymstock and Ivybridge News in South West Devon. The articles are published here

FARMING

What do you pay for a litre of milk in your local supermarket? 60 pence or so. What do you think the diary farmer, the person who works the fields, buys the cows, invests heavily in expensive equipment, makes hay and silage to keep the cattle alive during the winter, milks them twice a day come rain or shine, gets paid for the same litre? 18 pence.

An all party House of Commons committee recently investigated the price of milk and found after the costs of collection, processing and packaging, plus stated supermarket profit margins, there was still 18 pence unaccounted for, presumably hidden supermarket profits.

The superstores have such a massive purchasing power that prices have been driven down to a bare minimum, meaning that most dairy farmers locally are now producing milk at a loss. Every year thousands of farmers go to the wall or give up.

I am not against supermarkets. Jan and I shop at the new Tesco at Lee Mill, now roughly the size of New York! It is highly convenient to get everything you need under one roof, and usually at prices that smaller retail outlets cannot match. Supermarkets are successful because we all use them.

But they come with a wider price tag: the impact on town and village centres as the variety of small shops that used to serve us gradually wither and die; the huge increase of queuing traffic on the road as shoppers drive for their weekly goodies; and the ever tightening screw imposed on local suppliers who cannot hope to match their negotiating muscle.

But can we allow British agriculture to simply fade away? No one is suggesting even more taxpayer’s subsidy, but is it too much to ask that they get paid a fair price for their products?

What will be the shape of our countryside in a few years time if more and more farmers leave the land? If we come to rely on imported food only and if, God forbid, Britain should suffer another major war, who will feed us?

Perhaps we should require superstores to publicise how much of the price in certain of their product range (say milk, eggs, butter and cheese) is passed on to the primary producer, so we can judge how fair they are. The best supermarkets are very sensitive to consumer and stakeholder pressure these days. With more information we might be able to hold them to account.

posted by Nigel on Thursday, December 09, 2004