So how much would you pay for milk?

[IWanders]

All the articles on the news is making me think, if the supermarkets put the price of milk up how much would you be happy to pay? I don't like the thought of harming our dairy industry and making more families struggle.

Personally I would be happy as long as milk didn't go above say £3.50 on 6 pints which is the size I buy.

It would mean having to cut back on other things to compensate but I am curious as to how much others think milk should cost?

I'd definitely pay more.My family farm had a dairy herd of 60 and had to give up 10 years ago because it was uneconomic to produce any longer.We couldn't afford to employ anyone outside of the family and my dad had to make my sister redundant when the cows went.

Novack the problem is,those huge herds are not as good for the cows welfare and are operated much like factories.Personally,I like to see cows in fields,where they belong,not in huge hangars.I'd also prefer to support small family businesses rather than large conglomerates.

I just have an issue of trying to keep the unsustainable going ....

The costs of farming is skyrocketing with the wholesale cost of cream falling - the issue is not to look for protection but rather change the business model.

This wholesale blame that is laid at the doors of the supermarkets is not rally fair .... They are partly responsible, but at the same time are we going to pay inflated prices for every industry who has fallen on fallow times ....

Its a argument that extremely bizarre.

If they carry on, farmers will go out of business, so supply will drop and there won't be enough milk produced domestically to meet demand.

And unlike some other products they won't be able to import from abroad in the sheer quantities required any cheaper due to the nature of milk; it needs refrigeration and has an especially short shelf life which makes it expensive to import. Its precisely the reason why in this country, virtually all our milk is produced domestically in the first place - because other countries can not compete.

The net result is the price will be forced up anyway.

So all in all the price has no option but to go up - unless someone in government offers subsidies. Which isn't going to happen and should not happen.

The industry has a choice which way they go. To me its a complete no brainer. I have absolutely no idea why on earth there is even a debate going on about this. Its almost like the processers and supermarkets have entirely lost the plot.

Also worth pointing out its not the supermarkets selling milk to the public that are the biggest problem here. Its milk being sold to other manufacturers as an ingredient to other foods which is the bigger issue.

I pay 62p a pint, delivered to my doorstep in glass bottles by a local dairy farm with its own small bottling plant.

I have the pleasure of being able to take visitors on a walk along a public footpath that runs through their fields, and pointing out the cows the milk comes from.

Thay also have some Guernseys and sell their own gold-top, but I had to stop drinking that to keep my figure Anyway, Jersey's are prettier.

The supermarkets are morally neutral, they simply seek to maximise their profits, same as banks and drug dealers do. If they can buy cheap and sell dear, they will. If they think customers will love them for being kind to farmers, and that helps the profits, they'll do that. If they think they can scalp the suppliers and no-one cares enough to do anything, they'll do that.

Given how much profit supermarkets are making, I don't think it's unreasonable for them to take a lesser cut as a result of paying farmers more.

But why should supermarkets be singled out to pay above the market rate for milk. Where is the line drawn and how then are prices determined if markets just arbitrarily decide what the going rate is ....

And what about milk derivatives?

I buy Channel Island milk which is lovely and its 88p per litre. I would pay more.

Sorry Mirage I don't agree with your statement.

If small farms are not making any profit how is it that they are supposedly able to provide better animal husbandy when they often only have one herdsman to do all the work 7 days a week. Large farms have better animal welfare as is demonstrated by their happy cows giving higher milk yeilds and have 24 hour workers and vetinarian cover live in. Belgium farms with their robotic milkers and cleaners and the comfy beds for the cows give better mastitis control. As any farmer will tell you happy cows give higher yields and the figures tend to show that the small UK producers are no where near the .

Heifers are in many ways an artificialy bred domesticated animal and are bred for their milk solids and yield and they are not bred to withstand harsh weather which is why dairy herds are Holsteins or Jerseys for buttermilk and not highland cows to withstand poor grass and climate. It is far better husbandry to provide them with milking on demand with comfy beds in a controlled heated ventilated air conditioned cowshed with outside access to pasture than the romanticised cows in the field argument that is more akin to an Archers plot.

I don't think it's about whether we would pay more or not, when we go to the supermarket we buy milk becuse we need to, I don't consider it a luxury choice and if it were more expensive we would all still buy it through necessity.

If you look at the profit margins made by supermarkets you'll see where the money needs to come from and it's not our pocket. In a four pint bottle costing £1.18, 56p is paid to the farmer (although cost of production is 68p) and 62p goes to the supermarket. Yes this includes their overheads but I don't believe their overheads are more than the farmers.

It depends how you think markets best work. If you're of the opinion that efficiency, productivity and profit are the only measures of success, then yes, it's easy to label smaller milk producers as 'failing'. If, OTOH, you recognise that smaller producers may have higher costs and lower profits but provide countless other benefits that are not immediately apparent in financial terms, then you stop seeing 'market rates' as the ideal marker of fairness.

Smaller producers are often vital cogs in a communitiy, they often reduce carbon footprint because they are selling more locally, and they are frequently more ethically orientated.

The milk has to be processed, bottled, cooled and transported eating into the 62p ...

I want to pay a fair price for milk. Whatever the farmer says.

But supermarkets aren't the only problem, are they? Isn't it the milk processing places that make milk into other things that won't pay a fair price (as Hmm says)?

Milk in jersey is £1.09 per L and as far as I know, pays farmers slightly fairer out of that. . (It def has less transport costs..!)

Fair trade has always had an ethical dimension. Nothing ethical about dairy farming.

If farmers were so keen about promoting local milk then they could invest in the vending machines that you see all over France and sell their raw milk and keep every penny of the price for themselves. Raw milk sales are legal in England and Wales are they not? Lets face it few if any French woman stop eating brie during pregnancy and raw milk tastes a lot better than the homogonised supermarket milk whether organic or not.

I always buy milk at either Waitrose or Tesco for this very reason. Always have. I think what Asda and its sort are doing is so shortsighted that it shouldn't be allowed.

I would happily pay more. I get scared when farmers are squeezed as I want as healthy animals/land/crops etc as possible and something has to give.

I only buy organic milk and raw milk when I can get it

NovackNGood, surely the French system smothers small farmers with subsidies and protectionism, or has that stopped now?

You have to consider that whilst supermarkets can make a lot of profit off other products, other processors don't. Milk in the supermarket, makes very little profit. Supermarkets don't make much profit from basics anymore. Its a way of getting customers in the store to begin with. Processors who use milk as an ingredient make profits but have to do so from a smaller range of products and are again having that squeezed by supermarkets, so are trying to pass it on to the farmers. Its these products that supermarkets make the bigger profit on.

Ultimately, production costs have to be spread throughout the chain or it all collapses. You can't just import to make up the difference and expect to make the same level of profit. So the whole thing is a ridiculous set up.

Interesting read about how one local supermarket does 'fair trade' with farmers.

Its a more general article about how they trade but does include details on how much they charge for milk. (99p for 2pints verses 89p for other supermarkets at time of press in Nov).

I appreciate 10p for 2 pints is a substantial difference, but the costs end up being balanced a great deal by the fact that there aren't other hidden costs that would result if there was substantial numbers of British farmers pushed out the market by the price drive by supermarkets and processors that are putting them out of business (eg taxes, lost of jobs, cost of imports, lost of jobs in related industries, money being lost from in the uk that would otherwise pass to other industries, risk of being held to ransom by rising cost of fuel, cost of maintaining land that was previously used for agriculture, less of an argument to prevent building on land previously used for agriculture etc etc). It soon doesn't seem such a huge difference at all when you start adding up the costs of the alternative to paying fairer prices. The price on the label isn't the price you pay for food ultimately.

Thing is, if this supermarket can do this with the scales its doing it on, then why on earth can't the likes of Asda and Tescos do the same thing and be better at it?

I would pay more, significantly so if it was linked to the welfare of the cows.

I think it is a pity you don't get cream on top any more as all milk is homogenised. But that's neither here nor there.

mine isn't!

I have no idea how much milk costs - i buy it so rarely. Probably would pay a quid a pint.

Have the price of dairy products gone up in relation to the increase in milk prices? For me the price of cheese and yoghurt has rocketed in recent years.

Cheese is definitely more expensive that it used to be.

Has the price of milk gone up a lot in recent years.

In my head it costs 30p a pint but I am sure I am wrong

SmethwickBelle - just for you www.naturalfoodfinder.co.uk/dairy-eggs