September 20, 2013

From October 21, dairy farmers on the Müller Wiseman Milk Group's (MWMG) standard milk price will see it increase to £0.325 (US$0.52) per litre.

Müller Wiseman supply chain planning director, Martin Armstrong, said that the increased price reflects continuing pressure on UK milk supplies against a backdrop of strengthening global dairy commodities.

Referring to recent milk price campaigning by Farmers For Action (FFA), he added: "The MWMG board has worked tirelessly in the latest discussions and it is their reasoned and informed arguments, not illegal blockades organised by people who do not supply us, which have been pivotal in the agreement of this latest increase."

Chairman of the MWMG, Aberdeenshire producer, Roddy Catto, also had a dig at the recent FFA protests: "Whilst protests organised by the Dairy Coalition were more understandable in 2012, blockades in Shropshire in the past week were counterproductive. We stressed to FFA organisers that we were at an advanced stage in our discussions with the company and made it clear that threatening serious disruption was against our advice, and more importantly, potentially damaging to our farmers' interests. This was ignored and as a result, progress was halted and valuable time was wasted because the company's focus was taken away from discussions and onto issues like farm collections and deliveries to customers. It makes no sense whatsoever to undermine the work of the MWMG farmer board in this way."

National Farmers Union (NFU) Scotland milk policy manager, George Jamieson, commented on the price move and said: "We welcome this much needed increase for those supplying Müller Wiseman and credit the job done by the producer group in negotiating the deal. We hope that this announcement breaks the log-jam around milk prices and that other milk buyers follow quickly with further good news on price. Producers have watched, with growing frustration, soaring demand for dairy products worldwide and low production levels here in the UK fail to translate into better farm-gate prices for milk."

NFUS continues to promote objective market related and transparent pricing as an option that farmers can choose. Müller Wiseman, to its credit, has introduced such a formula into its mix of contracts and it is now returning more than £0.345 (US$0.55) per litre to those who have signed up, Jamieson said.

He added that this type of formula pricing initiative is needed to cover more milk to reflect its real market and offer an alternative to the current situation where crude tendering and undercutting for retailer market share is underpinned by farm gate price.