Commenting on the milk protests in Brussels, UK Farming Minister Jim Fitzpatrick said more subsidies were not acceptable if it led to paying for production that nobody wanted.
Once self-sufficient in terms of milk production, UK supermarkets are now buying in one million litres a day from abroad, and over 60,000 tonnes of cheddar in the first half of 2009.
The Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers (RABDF) says the number of dairy farmers in the UK has halved in a decade to 17,060, and farmers are still quitting at an average rate of 14 a week. This downward trend was bucked, briefly, in 2007 when global milk prices soared as the world economy boomed and countries such as India and China saw a surge in demand for all things dairy. Irish farmers in particular took advantage of rising milk prices to boost production, bringing a boom in cheddar production, much of which went into storage. Then, as the recession took hold, demand dried up and global milk prices resumed their downward trajectory. Today the best price Britain's dairy farmers can expect for their milk is just under 22.5p a litre, down more than 20% from the 13-year high of 27.3p achieved last October. - Guardian, 20th September 2009
If supermarkets were to introduce fairtrade milk, ensuring a fair price for dairy farmers, would you be prepared to pay a small subsidy (say 5p per pint) to support the dairy industry?
[If yes please choose your preferred option]
There is a wider issue here. The UK with its plentiful well-watered grass used to be a major producer of high quality milk - so much so that the Common Agricultural Policy deliberately restricted our output so that we weren't even allowed to produce enough milk for our domestic requirements.
Like so many "European" issues, the EU is actually about looking after national interests (especially French) within a Customs Union, not a Free Trade Area.
Our politicians have never understood this.
What other countries within the EU have deliberately destroyed major domestic interests as we have, e.g. the Dairy Industry or the rich fishing grounds surrounding our islands?
Our politicians haven't just badly failed the people of England, they have failed all of us living on these islands.