to bring us wealth
Leadership
to bring us wealth
to bring us wealth
UK farmers should be the wealthiest in Europe, but a lack of aggressive leadership and business acumen is letting them down, according to West Country farmer Derek Mead.
Mr Mead, the former vice-chairman of Dairy Crest shareholders association, said: "We should be the wealthiest farmers in Europe with 80% of our large population wanting to buy British. But we are simply not retaining enough money from our turnover. And until we can match the size and power of those who buy off us we never will. We need some tough aggressive leadership from people who understand business.
"Regional branding is not enough. We need to control the processing to stand up to the supermarket buyers and that would require investment on a scale we cannot afford.
"But we already have most of the necessary assets in Dairy Crest, a company with valuable brand names and a new state-of-the-art distribution centre at Nuneaton.
"If you had two or three of those you could provide such a scale and level of service that they could not afford not to use you and would pay the required price."
The next step might be to use Dairy Crest as the basis for a huge multi-product food company, he says. And alongside that develop British brands supported by tight labelling regulations for every product, including manufactured products, to be labelled with the exact source of all the ingredients.
An example of what not to do is what is happening to organic milk, he says. Instead of all the co-ops and companies co-operating to develop markets for the extra milk now being produced, some of them are competing by undercutting competitors on price. "It really is time these people grew up and started thinking longer term."
But Devon auctioneer David Lockwood, normally noted for energy and positive thinking says: "I have had the stuffing knocked out of me. The root of our problems is that farmgate prices are too low and there is too much taken out of agriculture on the gravy train between farm and plate.
"Talk of farmers joining forces to build abattoirs and processing plants is all very well. But who is going to run them? Where is the money coming from? Of course auctioneers could adapt and get involved in, say, procuring direct for such plants. But at present farmgate prices there is not enough margin for farmers let alone to pay anyone else a commission," he adds.
Meanwhile, Roger Metcalfe, currently a facilitator with the Objective One team in Cornwall adds that milk producers in the south-west have to take control of the end use for their milk.
He reckons that farmers must produce value-added products not more of the same old butter powder and liquid milk.
His comments are particularly true in Cornwall where there is a serious shortage of buyers. He suggests there is a need for new capacity to use the 150m litres of milk which leaves Cornwall each year. Typical on-farm processors use about 1m litres a year each so that would mean finding 150 new farm processors, and markets for their produce. It really needs one or more bigger projects, he feels.
To get into processing will take time and effort and money. The latter is available through Objective One, which offers up to 40% grants on capital programmes, though there are clear guidelines on what it can be used for.
"As an industry we will have to re-invent old cheeses and make yoghurts and fromage frais and all the other value-added products demanded by the public," he says. *
Derek Mead says farmers should add value by processing.
Foot-and-mouth disease and the long, wet
winter have left most farmers in the
south-west of England feeling battered and
weary. But despite this some West
Country farmers believe farming has a
bright future and now is their chance to
change the industry for good.
John Burns reports
SOUTH-WEST FACTS
Agricultural land area 1.74m hectares (4.30m acres). About 63% is grassland, including sole right rough grazing.
Farm numbers 36,464 farms support 74,538 people. About 70% of farms are owner occupied.
Cattle The south-west has a total cattle and calf population of 1.9m. There is a total dairy herd of 557,265 and a total beef herd of 199,205. Over a quarter of Englands beef herd is located in the region.
Sheep A total of 3.9 million sheep and lambs with a breeding flock of 1.9m. There are normally more sheep in the south-west than in either north-east or north-west England.
Pigs and poultry Total herd of 690,535 animals and is a poultry flock of just over 19m.
Arable Cereals account for 345,979ha (855,000 acres), with potatoes occupying 7800ha (19,270 acres) and other crops 10,773 ha (26,620 acres).
Source: MAFF June 2000 census. Figures will have changed as a result of foot-and-mouth.