Empowering dairy farmers 'will be legacy of the protests'

Harnessing the collective strength, created by dairy producers who protested against farm gate milk price cuts, into something positive and empowering is the dairy coalition’s next big challenge NFU’s chief dairy adviser Rob Newbery told 200 people gathered at a conference in Penrith, Cumbria.

Newbery also announced dairy coalition plans to create a whistle blowing mechanism, which would operate via a website process, for anyone who witnesses or experiences bad practice in the dairy supply chain - specifically breaches of the Code of Best Practice for dairy contracts.

“We need to turn the success of our short term collaboration into long term change,” explained Mr Newbery who was speaking at the Dairy Farming: Opportunities in the global marketplace conference which took place at Dolphenby Farm in Penrith on Tuesday 21 August.

“We all need to be identifying export opportunities for our Great British dairy products. On the theme of collaboration, there has been a lot of talk about Producer Organisations (PO). The NFU is putting together a database of farmers interested in forming a PO. We want our members to have all the correct information about the formation of a PO. There are some big questions that need answering such as what will they look like? How will they deliver a better milk price? And, how will POs sell milk into the market.”

There was a lot of support for the NFU’s Producer Organisation plans at the conference.

Billy Swainson of Moorpark Farm in Thurstonfield, Carlisle, said: “A supermarket buyer once said to me that farmers will only get what they’re worth when they work together. Until then they’ll only get what they deserve. Only through collaboration will we get what we are worth. We need to get behind the NFU and give Rob Newbery and the Producer Organisation idea a chance.”

The event was organised by NFU North West in association with First Milk. The event brought together some of the industry’s key figures to discuss opportunities for the dairy industry globally, in the UK and in Cumbria.

Chaired by Penrith and the Borders MP Rory Stewart, speakers who joined Rob Newbery included independent dairy consultant Mark Voorbergen, Chief Executive of First Milk Kate Allum and special guest – Minister of State for Food and Agriculture Jim Paice MP.

Majoring on the need to embrace exporting, Mr Paice MP said: “We have a £1.2 billion deficit in dairy products in this country. Virtually all of it could be produced by our own farmers. We can have up to 33% of the county’s entire dairy production in one Producer Organisation. That’s a massive amount of milk. We have to claw back the 25% of the dairy industry we currently import and I believe we have the ability to do that.”