Normally I keep my private passions away from this blog and discuss them on my other one, but I feel this topic is something more linked to work thoughts as well as home life.
Did you know that dairy farmers across Europe, but not Denmark and probably not the UK, have been taking industrial action in protest at the farm gate milk prices unilaterally set by the dairies and other milk transformers? It has been going on for quite a while and with some dramatic protests. I reported on local action in this posting, while a European association has been set up, complete with website, to press the case, and recently nearly 1,000 tractors made the image you can see at this site in a field near Annencis to make their point.
Free marketeers would argue that there is excess supply and that therefore the low prices offered to farmers at 8 cents a litre below the cost of production are just a manifestation of the laws of supply and demand. The fact that prices in supermarkets for milk, cream, butter, cheese and other milk related products have not fallen at all doesn't seem to come into the argument. Sharing the margins from the consumer or cutting the prices to the consumer have not happened - so the market isn't really working.
It was also not that long ago that prices for milk products rocketed because of excess demand in the system before the credit crunch (although I can't for the life of me think who takes out a mortgage to buy yoghurt). Supply is not something you can turn on and off that easily however - cows take a few years to breed and get to milking while the milking parlours farmers have to have to extract and store the milk need to meet ever stricter hygiene rules. Cows also need to be fed, even if no one is buying the milk, and create a landscape that is cherished by all, not just the farmers.
Finally, there are surely some products that are essential to the nation - clean air, clean water, basic foodstuffs, energy. If all our milk were to come from emerging nations, but then someone was able to pay more, our supply would be cut off, and we would be without the means of production ourselves (look at parallels in coal, gas, steel, aluminium, copper).
Personally I am prepared to pay a bit more for my dairy products, knowing that I am keeping an economy and way of life going. Having said that, I try to make sure I buy my milk and milk products from someone who is also a producer or at least doesn't profiteer from the producer. Bizarrely, such a purchasing policy also means I get to consume nicer products!
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