Leaving their farms after evening milking, farmers began the action at 8 p.m. May 12 in front of the gates to the chain’s Livingston distribution depot, staying until after 6 a.m. the next morning. They used farm vehicles to block the gates, preventing entry and exit of the big distribution trucks. Farmers asked the truck drivers to pull off the road, and saluted withdrawing drivers with applause.

Several hundred dairy farmers, many of them also members of the National Farmers’ Union, had joined similar protests the week before against Lidl, which has 4 percent of the retail grocery market in the United Kingdom. About 150 gathered at the Livingston depot at that time.

Alex Wilson, a dairy farmer in the Borders area and the Farmers for Action (FFA) representative for Scotland, spoke about the background to these protests in a telephone interview with the Militant. The number of dairy farmers in Scotland has dropped from 2,600 to 1,500 in the last five years, he said-a decline of 40 percent. The 1.3 pence price cut would reduce the average dairy farmer’s return by 10,000 per year, noted Wilson. With returns already below the cost of production, he said, dairy farmers are struggling to stay in business. These producers are squeezed between the high prices of implements and chemicals they have to buy, and the decreasing prices for their products.

Surveys published in September 2002 showed that while prices paid by consumers for dairy products were 5 percent lower than 12 months earlier, farmers were receiving 20 percent less for their milk. UK retailers enjoy a profit margin of between 20 percent and 30 percent on liquid milk and up to 40 percent on cheese. Supermarkets are selling mild Scottish cheddar cheese at 4,000 per tonne. For every one-pound pack sold at this price, the farmer loses 30p and the cheese processor 25p.

An article in the February 8 Press and Journal quotes the Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers as showing “the average price per litre paid to producers in 1996 was 25-26p. Currently, they are lucky to receive 18p.”

At the May 12 protest, farmers told Militant reporters that they need 20 pence per litre to meet their costs but were getting only an average of 15-16 pence in May due to a seasonal spring glut of lower quality milk.

Talking to reporters who are also factory workers, some farmers took the opportunity to dispel popular misrepresentations of farmers. One dairy farmer said that he, his wife, and his son work 80 hours a week when it’s not busy, and100 hours during the busy season, to keep the farm going. “It’s too much after 30 years,” he said. “I may have a ‘nice’ car, but don’t ask about holidays--we’re lucky to get a week off in the year.”

Another farmer said that contrary to popular belief dairy farmers receive no direct subsidy from the European Union (EU) for milk. He also said that he and his wife do all the work on their farm now as they can’t afford to hire labour any more. “I think you’d need a herd of 180-200 cows to keep your head above water at the moment,” he said. Most farmers interviewed by these reporters were milking herds of around 100 cows.

Economists for the Scottish Executive, Scotland’s devolved government, estimate that EU plans for the future of dairy farming would mean a farm-gate milk price of 13.5p per litre. This would reduce the number of dairy farmers in Scotland by two-thirds by 2007. The expected 500 surviving dairy farmers would produce the existing quantity of milk—from herds of 300 to 400 cows.

Farmers stated that buyers squeezing the price aren’t their only problem. “For example, we have to buy soya for protein and it’s not grown here,” said one farmer. “Protein sources like soya and beans come from North and South America. Cargill sets the prices, and we have to pay.”

Although the current actions against the Lidl milk price reduction have been organized by the FFA, the National Farmers Union (NFU) has also been involved in discussions with major milk processing and retail companies to maintain milk prices established following NFU-organized actions in 2002. In a May 13 statement, Scotland NFU president John Kinnaird said, “It is frankly ridiculous that at a time when we should be fighting for a price rise, that one retailer is apparently attempting to drive the price down.... The anger of our dairy members is obvious and I can see nothing but more protests unless they begin to receive a milk price that reflects the market situation.”

An editorial titled “Milk fight that must be won” in the May 10 issue of The Scottish Farmer, which has a circulation of more than 20,000 and an estimated readership of 100,000, stated, “All the more power then to Farmers for Action and the UK farming unions in their struggle to make Lidl see sense. If more demonstrations are required to achieve this, so be it.”  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home