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?

In America cows do eat grain. Mostly beef cows, though.

Ephiny, do you also not eat any dairy or anything made with dairy?

Milk is a loss leader, and so is bread. It's meant to drag you into the supermarket so you buy a cook-chill meal on which the profit is far far higher.

This is one of those hypocritical situations where everyone, from the comfort of their armchairs, says 'those poor famers, of course I would pay more to ensure their survival' and in the next breath is bragging about how everything is such a steal at Aldi. Most unbranded commodity foods like veg, fruit, milk, grains, meat are priced too low because those producing them are too small individually to have any collective bargaining power. The money is always with the second-stage handlers, processors and the big brands where costs and value can be easily added.

You want me to define 'essential'? Seriously?

I didn't say anything about drinking milk being 'unnatural' ( which would be a bit of a silly argument IMO) but for those who don't like it, can't tolerate it, or find it too expensive, it's perfectly possible to have a nutritious diet without it - or with a slightly reduced intake to compensate for the price increase. Especially if you're lucky enough to live in a developed country and shop in supermarkets!

Ephiny

You want me to define 'essential'? Seriously?

Well, yes. You used the word. Who are we talking about here? Poor kids in Africa who get one meal a day? Is it essential for them to have milk? Malnourished children (who were, until very recently, a common sight in the UK)? Is it essential for them? What about the human race as a whole? Milk was an essential building block for human civilisation. Without it the access to the food surplus required for urban living might never have been achieved. It remains an essential part of a healthy diet even though there are 'alternatives'.

I didn't say anything about drinking milk being 'unnatural' ( which would be a bit of a silly argument IMO) but for those who don't like it, can't tolerate it, or find it too expensive, it's perfectly possible to have a nutritious diet without it - or with a slightly reduced intake to compensate for the price increase. Especially if you're lucky enough to live in a developed country and shop in supermarkets!

You have the luxury of being able to turn your nose up at milk. You can be sniffy about it because your life and the welfare of your children doesn't depend on your access to milk.

I pay, in Australia, ~$2.85 for a litre of organic milk (that's about £1.90). I'm happy to pay it because it's the quality of milk that I want. But the milk suppliers here are ripped off too by the supermarkets, it's not just a UK phenomenon (most food is more expensive here).

I thought we were talking about how families in the UK might react to price increases in the supermarkets, rather than 'poor kids in Africa' etc. Maybe I've misunderstood, have only skimmed (sorry :)) the thread.

I never shop at Aldi, and if I felt like doing so I don't think I'd boast about it . So I may be elitist but I'm not a hypocrite.

Some three million tonnes of soy is imported into the UK very year, a large proportion of which is GM, at a cost of more than £1 billion.

Soya's main use in the UK is as feed for livestock.

After the oil has been collected the high-protein meal is used as animal feed for intensively reared cattle, pigs and poultry. This means that meat and dairy sold in supermarkets and used in major brands, mostly processed, is from animals fed GM.

See:www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/agriculture/geneticmodification/8405026/Supermarkets-sign-up-to-sustainable-GM-soy-label.html

Soya is in 60% of processed foods that we eat in the UK.

Soya flour is used in bread, soya oil is in margarine, soybean concentrate is used to bind foods together and boost protein content. Soya lecithin, (emulsifier E322), is one of the most widely used food additives. Soya protein is used in biscuits, sweets, diet drinks, pasta and frozen foods.

As you can see it is not just we Vegans who use Soya.

See; www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/21/uk-south-america-soy-rainforest-emissions

The United Nations state that if we are to feed the world we will have to adopt a Vegan life style.

deninbtn - if you have smaller scale, "traditional" dairy herds then there is less need to import soy for feedstock for them. Its the intensively farmed dairy herds who live inside who need far greater quantities of feedstock (in order to produce milk at a lower unit price). This again makes the point that for those that choose to drink milk, they should be paying slightly more to ensure a sustainable and less resource intensive method of farming.

and not just soya, a lot of high yielding holstein herds feed palm fat - from palm oil, to hold butterfat levels steady and at the required level, and provide energy for the cows.

I'm in Jersey and it's 1.09 a litre, and no milk is imported so it's all we can get, so no competition in prices. Can't believe it costs less to get Jersey milk in the UK than it does over here

Soy sauce is LUSH. I can't put it in my coffee though.

I pay 86p for half a litre of bottled water which I could get for free from a tap so I would be more than happy to pay more for my milk.

Animal welfare is so good here. Where we kill male newborn calves and hunt down and slaughter foxes.

If farmers have a problem with being short changed maybe its karma for how they treat their cows.

I still hold the view that milk costs more than petrol, but haven't checked for a long time, since they started charging in litres... and I've diversified into soy, goat, sheep,... So that's my lower limit, the cost of petrol, about 140p a litre.

I pay £1.39 per litre of goats milk (allegies to cow's milk protein). So over 70 pence per pint. I find it expensive as have 3 dcs who drink it, but I buy it because we need it so I would pay what we had to...reducing amount we drank/used if necessary.

I'm in Guernsey where it's £1.05 a litre. Money is tight and ideally I would like to be able to pay less for my milk. However I understand that if I want to continue to drive around my island and see the cows grazing then I'll have to keep paying for the privilege via the milk. And TBH the amount we pay in surcharges to other Uk companies who do sell their goods in the island even if we did have to import milk we'd probably be no better off as it would still be charged at a higher price than the mainland.

should be £5 a pint.

I'm vegan so I couldnt care less how much it costs.

Never buy the foul stuff.

Interesting that people would pay more for milk, would you pay more for British made cars, fridges, bread, tvs etc - because the people who manufacture all our goods deserve a job as much as the farmers. How much more would you be willing to sacrifice from your salary to ensure your neighbour has a job in the coal mines for example.

Farming industry is a particular challenge, lots of emotion bound up in these debates, farmers pleaded poverty for years, while driving around in a top of the range 4WD and got generous subsidies, things are not so cushy now. Who decides what is a good return on their investments/farms? Are they, unlike the rest of british businesses asking for a guaranteed price for their product, why the special treatment? Should inefficient farmers be allowed to go out of business - if not, why not?

There was an interesting analysis on radio 4 about fair trade - effectively companies pay farmers an extra 1p but they charge the ethical consumer an extra 10p -20p for their fair trade product - so the supermarkets make more profits from fair trade than non fair trade.

One thing I never get, the farmers talk about the huge profits generated at their expense by the supermarkets, then I visit our local farmers market only to find the goods sold directly from the farmer cost at least 50% more than the supermarket....I would have expected them to be cheaper given their rhetoric on supermarket profits.

I pay £1 for 4 pints which is so cheap it's scandalous.

I'd pay up to £3 for it tbh because I'm a milk addict and drink a couple of pints a day [bones of steel]

Any more than £3 and I'd have to find a less fattening alternative which I probably need to do anyway so at least I'd have an incentive.

Raise your prices, milk providers!

I agree with you actually SpringGoddess.

There have been good times, although admittedly not for a long time in dairy farming.

Years ago farms were mixed farms, so that if the milk price was low, then your pork price was probably high, or your cereal crop yielded well or whatever - it's not like that anymore.

Re the farmers market - Absolutely! If they sold their sausages/cheese whatever at half the price they would still be making a profit - and would probably sell more of it too!

Farmers markets are actually run by some large commercial organisations that charge an arm and a leg for stands and quite often the local farmer can't get a pitch at the local farmers market even if he could afford the stall price because a large producer is already there with their sausages etc and the organisers stop the local small farmer being there too to stop competition which would see the sausages sold cheap enough for all.

Is this the case with all farmers' markets, Novack?

There was a piece about it being very common on farming today recently on radio 4 at silly o'clock. Farmers in x y and z village in Somerset or Cornwall etc unable to sell their low volume produce at the local market whilst large producer from Norfolk or other area 2 to 3 hundred miles away were there selling the same type of produce and the organisers didn't allow the real local producers in to the market as they wanted to limit the supply to keep the prices artificially high.

NovackNGood

Farmers markets are actually run by some large commercial organisations that charge an arm and a leg for stands and quite often the local farmer can't get a pitch at the local farmers market even if he could afford the stall price because a large producer is already there with their sausages etc and the organisers stop the local small farmer being there too to stop competition which would see the sausages sold cheap enough for all.

That isn't the case for any that I've been to. I shop at them at least once a week.