Producers leaders hit out over 'milk robbery'

FARMING leaders north and south of the Border yesterday claimed that the big milk purchasers were not paying a fair price for raw milk.

Over recent weeks, there have been substantial rises in wholesale prices of major dairy commodities such as milk, cheese and cream in the UK. Farming unions claim these should have generated substantial increases in returns for milk producers.

Speaking at the launch of the NFU's report The Great Milk Robbery, dairy board chairman Mansel Raymond claimed processors were getting the equivalent of 4.3p per litre more this May than last May, and very little of this increase had been passed on to the primary producer.

"It's no surprise then that we've seen handsome annual profits made by the liquid buyers," Raymond said.

"It's in farmers' interests to have strong processors, but, while Wiseman has at least paid out 0.3ppl since August, Dairy Crest's cream bonus was short-lived, and Arla didn't see fit to offer anything until this month."

An NFU Scotland spokesman said that while there had been increases of fractions of a penny per litre, the market now justified rises of "pennies per litre" to the producer.

One of the main farmer-owned milk co-operatives, First Milk announced yesterday that it was increasing the price it pays for milk by between 0.3p and 0.5p per litre from 1 June.

First Milk chairman Bill Mustoe said: "These moves mean we have added over 13 million to the milk fund for member payments since February."