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Farmers Block Supplies in Price War With Supermarkets

Posted on: Thursday, 3 November 2005, 06:00 CST

By FORDYCE MAXWELL RURAL AFFAIRS EDITOR

FARMERS across the UK poured milk down the drain and withheld their produce yesterday on the first of a three-day supply strike in protest against supermarkets driving down prices.

Farmers for Action (FFA), organisers of the protest against low farm-gate prices, claimed more than 3,000 farmers had withheld potatoes, vegetables and meat, or thrown away milk.

But the group received lukewarm support from the official farmers' unions of Scotland and England, and the big four supermarkets claimed their supplies and sales had been unaffected.

John Cumming, the Scottish organiser of FFA, said the strike would bite by the weekend and he promised more to come from farmers fighting for a fairer share of retail prices.

He said: "We do not know yet if it will hurt supermarkets this time. But it will send them a message for the next time in the run- up to Christmas."

More than 3,000 farmers, hundreds of them in Scotland, had promised support before the supply strike began. Mr Cumming, a dairy farmer from near Stranraer, said thousands more were joining as they realised what it could achieve. "But we don't know exactly how many because the decision not to supply is being taken on thousands of individual farms," he said.

All farmers are asking for is a fair price, he said. Supermarket milk sells for 54p a litre upwards. Dairy farmers get, on average, 18p a litre, less than the cost of production. Ten years ago, farmers received about 25p a litre and, since then, almost 1,000 dairy farmers have quit in Scotland.

Potatoes retail at the equivalent of GBP 550 a tonne, compared with the present farm-gate price of less than GBP 100, and carrots at GBP 700, compared with GBP 80.

David Handley, a dairy farmer in Monmouthshire and national chairman of FFA, said retailers had to cut profit margins and pay farmers more. "I think that by Friday people will realise we mean business," he said. "Some commodities could run short by then and we advise consumers to shop before the weekend. We don't want to see people without food. Our message is simple. We are not asking for the consumer to pay more. Just let farmers have some of margin that the supermarkets are holding on to."

The SNP and Scottish Greens backed the protest, but a spokesman for the 100,000-strong National Farmers' Union (NFU) of England and Wales said: "We're encouraging farmers not to go on strike. We don't think it is the correct way forward."

NFU Scotland, which has 10,000 members, called on the Office of Fair Trading to rethink a report that claimed there was no evidence of unfair treatment of suppliers by supermarkets. It also criticised the increasing power of supermarkets and low farm-gate prices, but it stopped short of backing the strike.

"It is a tough call," said James Withers, NFU Scotland's communications director. "We understand why farmers are striking, but we are not convinced it is the right tactic."

John Kinnaird, the NFU Scotland president, yesterday met an all- party group of MSPs at Holyrood to seek their support. He said: "As supermarket margins have grown, farmers have faced a destructive squeeze. But many are simply not in a position to withhold supplies because it would make an already serious financial situation worse."

Sainsbury's, Morrison, Asda, Tesco and Marks & Spencer said their supplies were so far unaffected. FFA plans to continue withholding supplies today and tomorrow. But the strike was well-flagged and supermarkets are almost certainly stockpiled.

Source: Scotsman, The

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