Plea for calm in milk furore (From The Westmorland Gazette)

Russell Bowman quite rightly warns dairy farmers against ’short term knee jerk reaction’ to the ‘milk crisis’ there is no point in pouring milk down the drain. He fails to say what they should do to make their livelihoods sustainable and secure in the long term, though he seems to criticise their present methods and calls for “reform to put milk production on a more professional footing” Mr Farron called on his government to take “immediate action to help dairy farmers”, he obviously has no qualms about ‘knee jerk reactions’ then! What form of ‘help’ he eludes to is not reported. Subsidy? or price fixing? Either way I guess it would be the public’s pocket this ‘help’ comes from. More subsidies brings farming closer to being identified as nationalised and the last thing dairy farmers need to be accused of is living off state handouts, benefits! Legislation fixing the price paid to farmers would drive up the cost of dairy products to the consumer, and so less would be sold. This would likely persuade the processors out of the business in the long term, they could after all be investing in the banking industry where there are no risks and where they would be wholly and substantially provided for by the state! Tim Farron goes on to claim the processors are “morally wrong” for acting in a way which earns them greater profit margins. This calls into question the fundamental ethos of the free market that is the foundation stone on which his government attempts to balance the nation’s whole economic system and well being. I think if we are to start pointing out moral deficiencies in the capitalist system of the Western world there are many who are more guilty and more profoundly implicated than a handful of dairy processors in Britain. What Farron calls “destructive to the industry” is merely the rationalisation of supply. The free market principle determines the price of everything, therefore too much milk equals cheap milk. The system insists we all sink or swim by the unregulated rules of Capitalism. Maybe we need to be questioning the motives and systems of those leading us down these dead ends.

We have to consider the possibility that large-scale milk production is a dying industry in this country. In the same way as the car industry, steel production, textile processing etc. etc. they all have a limited local life span in the global free market. In some cases it is cheaper done abroad, in others the product is superseded or becomes unfashionable.
More and more people are cutting their intake of dairy products for ethical reasons and because the western diet is seen as the cause of many avoidable health problems. Given the limited and declining amount of agricultural land and a growing population, land hungry large-scale milk production will no doubt become an anachronistic form of protein production in the world during the 21st. century, reverting to small volume (luxury?) food status. This should not be seen as a problem but as a challenging opportunity for farmers, landowners and food producers. If we are to continue to produce at least some of our population’s nutrition and income from home soil we need to be radical when looking to the future. From such a stand point I would be greatly worried about urging dairy farmers to be “more professional” in their production of milk, unless that entails only producing the amount which they can sell profitably and directing some of their time and energy in a different direction.
Millions of people are desperate for land (from allotmenteers and would be small holders, to nature based and wilderness tourism operators etc.) to grow their own food, provide for their families and to earn a living in diverse and sustainable ways.
There can be no doubt that we need to use our land wisely, productively and above all conserve an ecological balance, if we are all to survive.