Milk Roadshows Offer Hope For A Brighter Future
“Young people must be given the opportunity to enter a profitable dairy industry in Wales and this can happen if farmers are paid a milk price that fairly reflects the market place,” was the message from NFU Cymru Deputy President, Stephen James, at a series of Milk Roadshow events, held earlier this week, at four different locations across Wales.
18 April 2011
3 minute read
During the programme of meetings sponsored by Barclays Bank the NFU’s Dairy Board Chairman, Mansel Raymond and Dairy Adviser, Sian Davies also spoke of the Union’s supply chain lobbying activities and priorities and the on-going work of the Union to secure better contracts for farmers.
Speaking after the final meeting in his home county of Pembrokeshire, the NFU’s Dairy Board Chairman Mansel Raymond said: “Welsh Dairy farmers are going through tough and troubled times. Today we might be in a slightly better place than we were 12 months ago, with milk price having moved up ever so slightly, but I’m afraid our reward from the market has not come at the speed or the height that it should have, we are at least 3-4ppl away from what the market should be paying Welsh farmers for their milk.
“Hope and confidence amongst farmers for a profitable future in milk production would be so different if farmers had been paid a milk price based on market conditions over the course of the past year. The fact that we haven’t is because our milk contracts leave us in a very weak negotiating position with milk buyers.
“We now have an opportunity to redress this balance and give farmers greater bargaining power and transparency in milk pricing, this can happen if the UK Government give’s the European Commission’s Dairy Package proposals its full backing. These proposals include measures that could provide dairy farmers with written dairy contracts which have the potential to eliminate unreasonable contractual practices regarding milk pricing and variation of contracts - accepting this package in full will go a long way to securing our future.”
Stephen James who also addressed all four meetings said, “NFU Cymru’s Milk Roadshow has provided an ideal opportunity for our members to contribute to what the Union is seeking to achieve in respect to the milk sector not least in terms of milk price.
“Looking to the future we’ve got a long way to go, the market place is not delivering as it should but the commission package if implemented in the UK offers us hope, alongside this we also need to see our processors building up export sales to capitalise on the rising global demand for milk products. Too often we see our buyers fighting and undercutting each other to secure increased volume of sales domestically when surely they should be looking to build new markets for our produce in Europe and beyond.
“I have been extremely encouraged by the number of young dairy farmers who have attended the roadshows, NFU Cymru will strive to ensure that we do everything with our powers to ensure that they have a long and prosperous future farming dairy cows in Wales.”
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