Cuts in milk prices will cause rise to consumers, say farming leaders

This article, which should go in a long line of such pronouncements about why anyone would ever want to try and earn a living from farming, tells us:

“Dairy farmers are being pushed to the brink by the latest cuts to the price they are paid for their milk, farming leaders warned as more than 2,500 farmers gathered in London to protest against the reductions.

The farmers are angry at the latest round of cuts of up to 2p per litre, which come on top of similar cuts in the spring, recently announced by major milk processors.

They say the cuts will force many farmers out of business, pushing up the price of milk for consumers in the long term.

At a summit in Westminster, National Farmers’ Union deputy president Meurig Raymond issued a stark warning that dairy farmers “have been pushed to the brink” by the latest cuts.

He told the farmers and supply chain representatives that someone had thought the previous round of cuts had not been enough, and that the farmers could take more reductions.

But he said: “These latest cuts are the feed bills, the wages, the housekeeping and will take us well into loss-making territory, with many farmers losing up to 6p per litre.”

We live in a perverse world where people who rely on farming to make a living are having to leave the land and people who have done well in other business endeavours want to buy farms as a hobby.

If key agricutlural sectors begin to lose their economic function on the basis of issues like 4p off a litre of milk (how may people drinking the stuff are that price sensitive?!!!) then we will soon find ourselves in a very tricky and socially very divisive debate about just what rural England is for.