Milk blockade goes on
29 January 2001
Milk blockade goes on
By John Burns
ANGRY farmers have vowed to continue demonstrations at Dairy Crest depots throughout the country in protest at milk prices.
Farmers For Action members began picketing nine Dairy Crest/Unigate depots from Cumbria to Cornwall on Sunday (28 January) night.
They are protesting against the companys refusal to increase producers milk price from 01 January.
Instead, Dairy Crest has offered a one-off 0.5ppl “special payment” for February.
FFA chairman David Handley insisted demonstrators would remain until Dairy Crest sits round a table and talks about a price rise in excess of 1ppl.
“We will stay as long as it takes, and support for our protests is growing around the country all the time,” he said.
Protesters targeted plants in Cumbria, Warwickshire, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire, Somerset, Devon, Cornwall, Bristol and Wales.
One of the biggest protests was at Davidstow, Cornwall, where almost 200 angry farmers gathered and vowed to return on Monday (29 January) night.
At Totnes, Devon, Family Farmers Association chairman Pippa Woods, a Unigate supplier, explained her anger at Dairy Crest.
“We are absolutely furious about what theyve done to us – offering us a one-off 0.5ppl bonus for February only.
“The world prices for milk products are rising fast, not to mention the extra money the supermarkets have offered already,” she said.
By Monday afternoon. FFA were back at Severnside, near Bristol. They said police were allowing them to talk to drivers and lorries were beginning to stack up.
Protester Derek Mead, National Farmers Union delegate for Somerset, accused union leader Ben Gill of preferring “to stay in the warm by his fireside while his members go bust”.
Mr Mead, who failed to be nominated for the unions milk committee, said if the hierarchy did not want him in the “inner circle”, they would have to put up with him in the “outer circle”.