The UK farming unions wrote to Food Security Minister Daniel Zeichner to raise concerns over possible changes to the new dairy contracts legislation that would allow the milk buyer to discount certain litres of a farm’s milk, even where a contract is exclusive.
The Fair Dealing Obligations (Milk) Regulations 2024 (FDOM24) came into force in the UK on 9 July 2024. From this point they will apply to all new contracts made for the purchase of milk from a producer.
See: GOV.UK | Guidance on the Fair Dealing Obligations (Milk) Regulations 2024
The 'Fair Dealing Obligations (Milk) Regulations' are laid in parliament.
Defra and the devolved administrations develop the dairy contract code alongside industry.
Read: Dairy code announcement comes at ‘critical time’ for producers
Following feedback from the 2020 consultation which found that unfair practices, linked to buyers having the power to set and modify contract terms and pricing mechanisms without negotiation, “persist” in the sector, creating uncertainty and ambiguity and ultimately instability across the supply chain, the government commits to develop a code.
Read: Dairy code announcement comes at ‘critical time’ for producers
Defra and the devolved administrations launch a consultation on a new, mandatory code for dairy contracts.
The Agriculture Act (2020) becomes law, giving the UK Government the power to regulate on contracts.
The Groceries Code Adjudicator report highlighted an imbalance of power in the dairy supply chain and the
UK Government recognised the need to legislate dairy contracts.
The new UK Agriculture Bill is developed to replace EU legislation which includes new powers to improve fairness in the supply chain.
In the wake of another dairy crisis, NFU calls for extending powers of the Groceries Code Adjudicator to improve fairness in the supply chain.
The SOS Dairy campaign sees farmer blockades of supermarkets and widespread protests about milk prices.
The voluntary code of practice for dairy contracts is also developed by farming unions and DairyUK.
The NFU launches a campaign to improve dairy contracts in the wake of Dairy Farmers of Britain collapse.
The NFU launches a new template dairy contract aimed at improving contract terms for farmers.