A grocery chain adjudicator with no powers beyond giving retailers a mild rap on the knuckles would not achieve fair play in the food chain, South West dairy farmers will be telling 20 of the region’s MPs at Westminster tomorrow (Thursday, 10 November).
The MPs, representing all the main parties, are to be asked to put cross party pressure on the government to sanction retailers with financial penalties if they don’t play fair with suppliers, a move it has hitherto shown reluctance to make.
This would also strengthen the hand of middlemen processors, who sell dairy products on farmers’ behalf but who have been cowed from getting them a fairer deal by the buying ‘muscle’ of the big retailers.
The average price paid to this country’s dairy farmers, at below 28 pence per litre, keeps them languishing virtually at the bottom of the European payment league making it impossible in many cases to sustain their businesses let alone make the major investments needed to keep pace with rising costs of production and strict new environmental regulations.
To put it in context, dairy farmers in only five member states – Latvia, Portugal, Poland, Lithuania and Slovenia get less, whilst the average price paid in Greece is nearly 40p.
The South West farming delegation will also be raising the need for protecting the confidentiality of suppliers approaching the adjudicator, if necessary, via third party representation.
No comments have been made.