Farmers - why do you have a right to a favourable price?

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Caporegime
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I was reading about how some smaller dairy farmers are struggling due to the low price of milk, and was wondering on what basis the NFU feel able to express concern over the price of milk paid to farmers.

Yield per cow and size of average herd have increased, so maybe this is just natural evolution of dairy farming rather than some nasty conspiracy to cripple farmers?

Milk prices fell 30% between 2013 and 2015, yet the number of dairy cows increased by 113,000, so the larger players are using economies of scale to price out the smaller competitors. So shouldn't the NFU be lobbying its own members to reduce production rather than complaining when the smaller players get out of the market? I'm not even sure that this is legal, but the cynical point I'm making is that it's dairy farmers that are putting dairy farmers out of business, not supermarkets, who just respond to the market.

Why do farmers feel that they should be exempt from the free market rules that govern the rest of business in the UK?

If you can't do it better, cheaper, or more efficiently, then get out of the market surely?

I literally don't understand what differentiates farmers from any other struggling business that is forced to fend for themselves. Farming is not exactly a nationalised industry, so what am I missing? Farmers do not warrant some kind of ring fencing to their profits. Or can I start a window cleaning company and demand £300 per hour?

Appendix

This is the article:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-36764592
 
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I'm not completely arguing against your points, but I'd slightly dispute the "supermarkets just respond to the market".
They are often so big, and are so key to a suppliers business, that they can effectively dictate the price they pay. I remember this being a point raised previously about supermarkets bullying suppliers.
 
alx said:
I'm not completely arguing against your points, but I'd slightly dispute the "supermarkets just respond to the market".
They are often so big, and are so key to a suppliers business, that they can effectively dictate the price they pay. I remember this being a point raised previously about supermarkets bullying suppliers.
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If that was the case they'd dictate a price of zero.
 
Participant said:
If that was the case they'd dictate a price of zero.
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thats what all the arguments where about last year, the supermarkets started telling the processors they would pay less and so the farmers got the same rubbish, nothing to do with supply but to do with giving the customer cheaper milk, like 20p extra on a 4 pint bottle is going to stop people buying milk.
 
I watched a documentary on a topic about this a while ago, can't remember what it was, I'll try think of it. The gist was that the large supermarkets are the only companies with the purchasing power to keep the British farming industry afloat and as such pay the farmers as little as they can get away with and the farmers have no choice but to bend over and take it or struggle to find buyers.

I can't comment on the validity of it all but it was food for thought nonetheless.
 
The NFU are well within their rights to express concern when the price per litre paid to farmers is below the cost of production.

For some strange reason people out there seem to think it's unreasonable for a farmer to earn a decent living.

Larger farms don't have the same standards of welfare as smaller farmers in my opinion, our herd of 65 Milkers get treated with respect, they're free to range the fields for as long as the ground can stand it during the sunny months, before being shut in for the winter in the best conditions possible.

If you lock 1000 cows in a shed in intensive conditions with cheap labour and fast milking systems then your cost of production will decrease, but why on earth would you want milk that's produced from those conditions?
 
The issue is more of the fact that milk is treated as a commodity.

No sane person in business would make a product and sell it at a loss through choice. Milk is a little different - They get what they are given. Without the single farm payment there would probably be next to no diary farmers.
 
Part of the reason that we tend to view farmers differently to other small businesses is that there's a huge sense of nostalgia around them. If you come from a rural community, chances are you know someone who's a farmer or who comes from a farming family. That touches on another reason: farming is generally an inherited business, and we again tend to view family businesses differently to others. You don't tend to see Joe Bloggs deciding he's going to move to the country and start a farm. And if you do, I don't think they're viewed quite the same.

I buy the majority of my milk from the local farm. I've known them all my life. I feel that by spending a little bit more I get fresher produce and am supporting a local business. Not everyone feels the same, and I know that sooner or later they'll be gone. And when they do it'll be sad because it'll be part of the community that's gone.
 
Yes because the ideal situation in capitalism is 1 mega corporation making 1 product each or even better 1 making everything.
 
Not everything should be left 100% to the naked free market.

If you don't care where your milk comes from, don't care how it was produced and to what health standards, don't care about intensive farming and the welfare of the animals producing it and don't care about creating employment for home-based farmers and suppliers, then by all means encourage supermarkets to source the cheapest milk they can find. Personally I would prefer to pay a few extra pence per litre to ensure at least some of the above isn't true.

It's also a good idea for a country, any country, to not destroy it's farming industry, so it isn't totally dependant on imports and exchange rates etc. Especially at a time where we seem to be heading out of the EU and into uncertain waters.
 
I'd happily pay more to help support our farming industry.

Supermarkets need to stop with this race to the bottom on pricing everything, it's favouring cheaply made rubbish filled with bad stuff.
 
We buy the 23p farmers milk from morrisons. Also I read in the paper today that arla are introducing a range with same extra price point, that goes directly to the farmers.

This is one I support.
 
Milk is a pricing war for supermarkets. It's stupid when they sell milk for less than what it costs the farmer to make it sometimes.

The supermarkets have a strangle hold on milk and basically set the price.

How many people even check the price of the milk they are buying?

The dairy industry is mad and is too controlled by the big supermarkets now. A few years there was a shortage of milk in the uk due to a cold spring and the grass flush not really happening.

Arla, one of the biggest dairies in the country, wrote to all their milk farmers and said because their contract with the supermarkets meant they had to supply x amount of milk at y price, they were having to import millions at extra cost so therefore they were going to pay the uk farmers 2p less.

Only in the uk dairy industry can a shortage mean the price of the goods drop.

What was wrong with making the consumer pay 2p more since it is in short supply?
 
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Cern said:
Not everything should be left 100% to the naked free market.

If you don't care where your milk comes from, don't care how it was produced and to what health standards, don't care about intensive farming and the welfare of the animals producing it and don't care about creating employment for home-based farmers and suppliers, then by all means encourage supermarkets to source the cheapest milk they can find. Personally I would prefer to pay a few extra pence per litre to ensure at least some of the above isn't true.

It's also a good idea for a country, any country, to not destroy it's farming industry, so it isn't totally dependant on imports and exchange rates etc. Especially at a time where we seem to be heading out of the EU and into uncertain waters.
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It is up to the industry to show the benefits of all those things you talk about. Otherwise it is just a plastic carton of white stuff that most people will buy on price alone.
 
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