It's fifteen years since I wrote an angry article 'The Price of Milk' detailing how badly our local farmers were being treated since the demise of the old Milk Marketing Board in 1994 and it's final dissolution in 2002. Founded in 1933 when farming was in deep depression, its function was to guarantee milk producers a fair price and a market for their product. For sixty years it did exactly that and whilst many farmers disliked its powers all agreed that it had done what it was set up for and ensured an economic price. By 2000 the big dairy companies and the supermarkets were in full control of prices and were acting in concert to drive the farm gate price down under the guise of 'commercial competition'. I warned then that this was going to change the face of farming in our area and it gives me no pleasure to record that this is exactly what happened.
In 2000 there were still many local milk producers and farmer retailers. You didn't have to go far in the district to see fields full of milking herds, we had a local cheese factory at West Marton processing local milk but at Xmas that year it closed. Since then it has been a story of decline as the smaller producers have been driven out of production by lower and lower prices.
In recent months we have seen a further attack on farm gate prices, this time under the guise of competition from global production, the decline in global demand and a consequent fall in prices. I can't for the life of me see how the price of fresh milk in China has anything to do with what it is here! Nevertheless prices have been driven down even further to below the price of production and some of the large processors have been driven out of business reducing the options for selling the milk. The few larger and more efficient local farms who, up to now have managed to survive, are under pressure and it's difficult to see how they can survive in the long run.
Meanwhile we can go into the supermarket and buy milk that is cheaper than bottled water! We are told that this is how the 'market' works and we should be grateful for the lower prices but it would be as well to look at what we have lost under this system. The character of local farming has changed over the last fifteen years and will change even more. We can no longer buy fresh local milk. Price isn't everything but the terrible thing is that there is nothing, apart from a boycott which is impossible, that we can do. We are powerless in this battle of economics and can only watch as a vital part of our local life is destroyed forever. I've spent a lot of my life with cows and working in the dairy industry and I can't tell you how sad I am....
Ernie Dawson with some of his cattle at Thornton Hall in 1976.
