A 10 per cent decline in milk production over recent months combined with favourable exchange rates – making imports more expensive – and increasing spot prices for milk should all mean increased returns for processors, which must be passed on to dairy farmers who can ill afford to wait.
Andrew Branton, chairman of the NFU’s South West dairy board said: “After the extended period of low prices we have had, any ‘fat on the bone’ has well and truly gone and the kitchen draw is bulging with invoices waiting to be paid.
“If we are not to see more farm businesses go the same way as the 79 across the region that have left the industry in the last 12 months, price increases must be returned to farms as quickly as possible.
“We also the face challenges of bovine TB with all the extra costs that involves and with many expecting volatility in markets to continue it is vital that mechanisms are put in place to allow farm businesses to cope with low prices. Now we have voted to leave Europe, we will work with the UK Government to introduce specific measures to help our industry.”
The NFU is about to embark on a series of meetings across the region to give members the opportunity to discuss the implications of the Brexit vote and the options that could form part of a vigorous new agricultural policy.