The thing about London buses is that you’re never quite sure if they’ll turn up at all. On the other hand, there was a grim inevitability about today’s news that first Dairy Crest and then Arla would follow Robert Wiseman’s lead in cutting the farmgate price of milk.
If Friday’s move by Wiseman came as something of a surprise, considering how fresh in the memory the previous reduction was, today’s announcements were anything but.
Arla’s cut was the most severe of the three, slashing 2ppl from its standard rate. But the most eye-catching figure today was the £35m ‘profit warning’ issued by Dairy Crest Direct. That sum is the amount DCD reckons its 650 members will jointly lose over a year as a result of the reduced rate.
Chariman David Herdman said the reduction, added to May’s 2ppl cut, meant the current price was “completely unsustainable” - views echoed by the other supply groups.
“For the sake of our producers we have no option but to fight this cut - this scale of loss in untenable,” said Roddy Catto of Wiseman Milk Partnership, while Jonathan Ovens, chair of Arla Foods Milk Partnership, said farmers “simply cannot afford to go into the winter making a loss of 5ppl”.
Adding insult to injury, rumours swept Twitter today that some farmers were told about the cut by their processors via text message.
“It’s like a broken relationship - informed of dumping (price) by text,” tweeted NFU dairy board vice chairman Rob Harrison, adding he was “out of love” with his processor and “feeling desperate”.
The processors have pointed to longer notice periods as evidence that they’re doing their best to shield farmers from the worst. And Dairy Crest has ruled out making any further reductions this year.
But as long-strained relations between farmers and processors sink to a new low, it’s hard to see those reassurances carrying much weight.
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