Vol. 76/No. 31      August 20, 2012

Dozens of dairy farmers and other rural workers demonstrated July 23 outside the Arla milk processing plant in Hatfield Peverel, in Essex. Farmers came from a number of counties around the southeast of England and East Anglia.

John Smith, 25, has taken over running his father’s family farm. It has 100 cows. “There’s only 10 dairy farmers left in Essex now. We were just breaking even before,” he said, “but the price cuts have wiped us out.”

Hundreds of farmers have mobilized at other milk processing plants. Three of the largest processors—Arla, Dairy Crest and Wiseman—have reversed a 2 pence a liter price cut they were due to introduce in August following protest blockades at their plants (1 pence=US 2 cents).

“A reversal in the earlier cuts of May-June is a top priority,” said Andrew Hemmings, vice chair of Farmers For Action, which organized many of the protests. FFA called a temporary halt to protests at dairies but resumed them Aug. 2 outside the Iceland and Farmfoods supermarkets.

“This has shown what we can accomplish,” Surrey dairy farmer and FFA leader Youleitte Parkes told the Militant following a protest at Hatfield Peverel. “Now we get 27 pence a liter, not 25 pence, but this is still under our costs of production, so the fight goes on.

“We’re also hit by rising production costs. Despite having a bigger herd today we get a smaller yield than before because bad weather has affected the grass quality.”

“In 1995, supermarkets had a 10 percent margin on milk. Today it’s 35 percent,” Stephen Frankland, a dairy farmer from Ripon, Yorkshire, told the Guardian. “The consumer doesn’t have to pay more for their milk, the supermarket just has to cut its margins.”

Tony Hunt contributed to this article.  
 
 
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