NFU Issues Strong Warning to Milk Link

NFU Issues Strong Warning to Milk Link

THE NFU has called on Milk Link to rethink its 0.5p/litre cut in October milk prices or face an accelerated exodus from the industry.

South-west dairy board chairman John Daw has written to Milk Link chief executive Barry Nicholls urging him to reconsider October’s price reduction.

 Mr Daw, who is also a Milk Link supplier and council member, claimed there was no justification for the cut in a climate of strengthening commodity prices.

If the co-op needed more money for long-term investment, it should raise this through other methods not through cutting the milk price, he said.

“To use a producer price cut to raise funds is hugely damaging to morale, runs the risk of triggering a general downward spiral across the sector… leading to a potential serious shortfall in supplies,” he warned.

Milk Link is holding 35 member meetings across the country and a council meeting was due to be held yesterday (Nov 4) in Bristol, before which Gwyn Jones, a Milk Link supplier and NFU dairy board chairman, said: “We need to get to the bottom of this.”