To want to pay more for my milk?

[hillyhilly]

I don't want to screw British farmers but aside from a farm shop, I genuinely don't know where I should buy it.
I try to buy organic where possible and generally buy from Aldi though I do top up at Morrison's and Sainsburys local stores
I've looked for a facebook page but the one I found is not as active as it should be given the current focus.

Another who always buys Duchy Organic from Waitrose.
Its the only non-homogenised organics milk I can find locally.

Hmm ethical consumer says Duchy is owned by Apple Inc whereas wiki says

"The company Duchy Originals Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary company of The Prince's Charities Foundation"

Organic milk ensures better welfare standards for cattle Soil Association information Duchy milk really does taste better but Yeo Valley does not come from farms where Badgers are culled.

www.riverford.co.uk/col/aboutus/animal-welfare

riverford let the calves stay with the mother till weaning - at 12 to 24 hours old.

Better than most farms where calves are removed at birth.

God i hoped that riverford or organic would be a bit better than that :(

Branleuse it's vague isn't it!

There are no restrictions on non-organic weaning and calves are typically taken away from their mothers at birth. In the organic system the calves stay with their mothers for 12-24 hours to feed on colostrum, the rich first milk which is filled with nutrients and antibodies, before being fully weaned by 12 weeks. During this time at least half of their diet is fresh, whole milk, whereas non-organic farmers largely use a milk replacement powder, often containing synthetic vitamins. from the Riverford link.

All it really says is that they take colostrum in the first day or so, and stay on a natural diet for three months. No indication of whether this natural diet is because the calves and cows stay together.

Yeo Valley organic.

It's kinder to cows and kinder to farmers. There was a report on this.

I can't link it, as I can't remember what it was. But that's what I buy.

I buy milk from Abel & Cole...there is some info about the producers on their site. I buy it because it's organic and non-homogenised. We don't use an awful lot (about 4l a week) so the cost is negligible.

This may have been mentioned, but I have just signed this:
epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/73628

Would be good to get an MPs debate!

I gave up with our milkman - he is dairy crest. stuck with them until they insisted we used plastic instead of glass and then they moved him into a diesel vehicle from the electric one. There was absolutely no advantage for anyone in paying the premium amount. So now I put that extra money into buying organic and after this thread am ditching morrisons organic for yeovalley.

www.ahimsamilk.org

I like thr sound of this

Really informative thread. And I'm surprised that Tesco and Sainsbury's are actually at the more ethical end of things as far as supermarkets go (disappointed in Morrisons).

so put the price of milk up and then the people who are in poverty barely able to feed their kids will struggle even more.. I hardly see that as a good solution

Its just not sustainable for food to sell for less than it costs to produce.

it isnt the dairy farmers responsibility to subsidise the supermarkets springbreaker.

I probably would share OP's sentiments on milk price had I not been a single parent working part-time and paying rent+bills+food+childcare. Middle-class problems I envy!

SpringBeaker If they put costs up they would probably offer Value Milk like they do with other brands. Not much point at the moment because it's generally cheap anyway if you're not buying organic/ethical.

My local farm shop has an amazing machine next door to the cowsheds. It provides fresh milk into a container that you bring - £1 for 2 pints. I happily pay more as it's literally from the farm and also it's not homogenised so it tastes amazing, just like I remember milk did when I was little. I've never seen this before, but it is just fab!

The problem with putting the price up is that people might buy less milk. We need people to consume more milk and milk products at a fair price to support our British dairies. The milk buyers just can't sell all the milk the farmers are producing hence the very low ppl and the reason some farmers aren't having their contracts renewed.

This is probably a really stupid question, but is it possible and/or cost effective to actually import milk to the UK? It seems like it would be such a pain to do that it wouldn't be worth it.

I mean fresh milk obv, not powder or tinned...

I buy organic from waitrose or sainsburys. If I can't afford it we just have less milk (DC and DH, I don't tend to eat/drink the stuff) as I'm not going to support supermarkets who pay less than production costs to farmers.

I shop at Lidl as money is tight, Im so disappointed in them. Id checked their ethics on their beauty products and meat, only buy british chicken and british pork as our welfare standards are better, never buy Halal due to animal welfare. I thought they were better than this.

So today i did my usual Lidl shop then drove the 15 minutes to tesco's (I hate tesco's and their awful ethics with a passion!) to buy my milk as they pay the farmers enough to cover their costs.

On the Isle of Man milk is 60p a pint, and I believe that is just covering what they need to produce it. They deliver it if you prefer, but it is the same price as it is in the shops. Imported milk is controlled, so you can't really buy it. I like it that way, it does seem fairer to farmers here.

Perhaps someone could explain to me why someone who runs a dairy-farming business should be protected from the free market forces of supply & demand?

At the moment, the market is over-supplied with milk, so the price is dropping. What will happen now is that the least efficient dairy-farms will go out of business. Although that's very sad for the individuals concerned, they can always get a different job in a related field (no pun intended) or retrain to do something else.

This is a good thing for our society because it means there's more good people now working for other more profitable enterprises or in public service. Soon there will only be efficient. large-scale producers left (and a few niche market suppliers such as organic). Maybe some of the market share will be taken by lower-cost producers in Eastern Europe: that's a great thing too because those countries are much poorer than us and they need the export income to grow their economies.

So: to repeat my initial question: Why are dairy farmers entitled to a job for life?

I also do most of my shopping at Lidl due to finances, it's just things like milk where farmer's livelihoods and animal welfare are a big concern that I make an exception for (or things I can't get at Lidl)