Hats off to NFU over milk market: They really do get it

From time to time in the past, mainly in conversation with friends or workmates, I've been critical and possibly unfairly so, about the NFU. Today, I feel the need to confess and repent because, at a reception they hosted at the excellent inaugural UK Dairy Day in Telford, they clearly get it about the future of UK milk production.

Unfortunately, they have to disguise the message with corporate twaddle like 'adding value' and 'supply chain transparency' to prevent a shoot-the-messenger inspired exodus of milk producing members. However, no matter how well crafted the language to cushion the blow, the harsh reality was there, between the lines of carefully managed delivery. In as few simple words as possible, it is: 'Produce milk competitively in a global market'.

Someone in the audience asked a question about fairness in milk pricing. I wanted to shout out, but didn't because this was someone else's gig, "where's the place of fairness in business?"

Surely, without sounding unduly like a pinko revolutionary, employers exploit staff; those with capital exploit those without; strong exploit the weak; and cunning, the naive. It's survival of the fittest in this 21st Century world. In the farming arena, how many farmers pay more than they have to for diesel or wages? Why would a milk processor be any different?

Milk is a commodity, the price of which paid to farmers will go up and down due to factors way beyond their control (or NFU's or FFA's). It's not very different from digging stone from a quarry. When lots of large scale construction work is taking place, demand rises and along with it, the price. If or when construction work slows, the stone price drops. Unlike milk of course, quarrying can also stop until the price picks up. In milk, the only viable future is, as I nearly heard at the Dairy Day, to 'produce milk competitively in a global market'. Well said, NFU.