"Janet" wrote in message
...
In article ,
lid says...

Janet wrote:
In article ,
lid says...

Janet wrote:
In article ,
lid says...

Bill Grey wrote:
"Ian B" wrote in message
...
Roger Tonkin wrote:
In article ,
says...

Why why WHY do the farmers ALWAYS bleat hard times time and
time again?

Have you ever seen a poor farmer?




There are plenty of them around here, where hill farming of
sheep is the only possibility. Also we know that dairy farmers
get less per lire for their milk than it takes to produce
(unless you run a super farm!).

Then why are they producing it? Something economically wrong
there, isn't there?

at

The thing is, nobody can "dictate" a price. I can say I'll only pay
£100 for a Ferrari, but I can't make Ferrari sell me one for that
price. Likewise if the supermarkets demand milk at a cheaper price
than it can be produced, they will get no milk, because there won't
be any producers at that
price.

Except that if Ferrari don't want to sell cheap, they can just
park the car they made and wait for the market to change. You can't
do that with a live herd of milkers, in the middle of a breeding
program. They still have to be fed, milked and managed, all costing
money. So, the buyer knows very well the farmer can't afford to
refuse to sell the product. So long as he has milkers he must sell
milk, even at aloss, until he either goes bust or gets out of
dairying. The problem with getting out of dairying, is that he's
probably still owes the bank for his dairy equipment (that nobody
else wants to buy, and can't be adapted to another use). Recipe for
bankruptcy.

In the past decade,the number of UK dairy farms has halved.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...sumer/2785449/
UK-dairy-farming-on-brink-of-collapse.html

"UK dairy farmers lose an average of 4.7p on every litre of milk
they produce, giving the average dairy farm an annual loss of
£37,600, new figures show.

The figures from First Milk, a farmer-owned dairy business that
supplies more than 1.8bn litres of milk a year, lay bare the
desperate plight of the UK dairy industry.

According to a report out today, the average price paid to a farmer
for a litre of milk over the year to March 31 2007 was 17.5p.
However the cost of producing this milk was 22p. This 4.7p loss
multiplied by the 800,000 litres that the average farm produces
each year equates to £37,600.

Peter Humphreys, chief executive of First Milk, said that the dairy
industry was "on the brink of collapse".

When dairying in the UK is finished, don't imagine UK
supermarkets will still sell it at the lowest price in Europe.
They'll still be the ones setting the price of milk but it will be
the consumers over a barrel.

Janet.

And as I said, if government regulations are making our milk
uneconomic,

They aren't. We have the highest welfare and safety standards in
Europe ,


There's your problem right there, Janet.

Our supermarkets also set the retail price to UK consumers, which is the
cheapest in Europe. Historically, they set retail milk prices as a
competitive lossleader. But in the past decade, UK supermarkets have
doubled their profit margin on milk. They have also, driven down the price
they pay to farmers, now UNDER the farmers production cost. They could
either, pay farmers a sustainable margin and take less for themselves.
Or, they could pay farmers a sustainable margin and pass the extra cost to
customers. It would still be cheaper than doorstep deliveries.

Janet

Here is a farcical (ficitious statement) which may illustrate the
Supermarket strategy.

" Bread prices rise by 10%, Wedding Cake price down by 20%"

Bill