Dairy pledge shows prices too low
15 February 2001
Dairy pledge ‘shows prices too low’
By FWi staff
A MAJOR dairy which has hinted it will pay farmers an extra 1-2ppl for milk is effectively acknowledging that prices are too low, it has been claimed.
Robert Wiseman Dairies has written to 300 farmers in Scotland who supply it with milk giving a “a cast-iron commitment” to maintain a price differential.
In a bid to retain suppliers, Wiseman hints that the new milk price from 1 April will be “somewhere between one and two pence higher than present”.
Scottish Milk and Axis have just merged to form the largest producer co-operative in the UK and it is thought that many farmers will return to the co-ops.
“Im happy that Wiseman has acknowledged that the price of milk needs to increase,” said Scottish Milk group finance controller Jim Maguire.
“But I dont think its foolhardy for them to make this pledge as I can understand that they want a spread of suppliers and not rely on one source.”
Wiseman director of milk procurement Pete Nicholson said there had been a lot of talk about co-ops being “a panacea” for current low milk prices.
He added: “We have faith that ultimately farmers will come to their own conclusions based on what is best for their own businesses.”
But dairy farmers organisations are beginning a concerted push to persuade direct selling milk producers to join co-ops en masse.
The National Farmers Union, the Federation of Milk Producers and the Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers have arranged a series of open meetings.
Scottish Milk and Axis will trade 2.2 billion litres of milk a year, about 18% of the UKs raw milk. Turnover would exceed 400m.