MPs urge government to do more to support dairy farmers

A cross-bench committee of MPs has urged the government to help struggling dairy farmers, warning that more are going out of business every week because of sharp falls in the international price of milk and discounting by UK supermarkets.

The Commons' environment, food and rural affairs committee has said in a new report the government must do more to protect milk producers from the “volatility of the global market" over which they have no control.

The BBC reports that to keep cattle well-fed and cared for, farmers need to get about 30p per litre of milk - in fact, most are struggling by on 20p per litre. The global price of milk has fallen sharply in recent months because of a combination of geo-political factors.

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Russia has banned imports from the EU in retaliation for sanctions imposed in the wake of its annexation of Crimea. At the same time, a slowdown in growth in China has led to less demand for imported goods there.

Domestically, supermarkets compete to sell the product cheaply, forcing down the price they are willing to pay suppliers - and this is one of the pressures on dairy farmers the committee's MPs believe the government can alleviate.

They want the Groceries Code Adjudicator to be given more powers, so she can help ensure farmers get a fair price from supermarkets.

The adjudicator's office was created in 2013 to regulate the relationship between supermarkets and suppliers. But, because most dairy farmers sell their milk through intermediaries, the current adjudicator, Christine Tacon, is not able to investigate their complaints.

The MPs also urged the government to do everything it can to promote British dairy produce, both at home and abroad. The NFU revealed in December that there are now fewer than 10,000 dairy farmers in the UK - half the number there were in 2001.