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Enraged Farmers to Blockade Milk Depots

Posted on: Thursday, 4 August 2005, 06:00 CDT

DAIRY farmers will today begin a series of blockades at supermarket depots across Scotland to stop the supply of milk and try to force retail chains to renegotiate the price they pay to suppliers.

The action will take place only a day after supermarkets were cleared to continue aggressive bargaining tactics, with the Office of Fair Trading finding they had not breached a statutory code of practice.

Today's six-hour protest will be the start of a series of increasingly lengthy blockades until the dairy farmers get an agreement. Milk will be prevented from leaving 14 sites across Scotland, they claimed.

The protests are being organised independently of the National Farmers' Union in Scotland.

Research from the Milk Development Council found increases of 3.5p per litre had not been passed on to farmers.

While supermarkets' profits on a litre of milk had increased by between 8-10p over the past decade, prices to farmers had dropped by 6p a litre.

Farmers planning blockades described the study as "the straw that broke the camel's back". Over the past six years, one in four Scottish dairy farmers has gone out of business, with only 1450 surviving.

John Cumming, a dairy farmer helping co-ordinate the blockades, said the first is just a warning shot. If supermarkets do not act, "we are going to stop the supply of milk".

Source: Herald, The; Glasgow (UK)

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