Agriculture: Dairy Industry

Oral answer to question provided on Monday, 7 February 2011 in the House of Lords, by Lord Henley (Conservative).

Answer

My Lords, I cannot confirm or deny the figures produced by the noble Lord, but I can give him an assurance that subsidies go to the farmers and not to the cows as I imagine that the cows do not have bank accounts.

This is an answer to the Oral question asked on Monday, 7 February 2011 by Lord Lea of Crondall (Labour).

Question

As I understand it, there are 17,000 dairy farms in this country and the average dairy farm gets a subsidy of £30,000 a year, which by my arithmetic is £500 million. There are 2 million cows, so each cow gets £250. I am sure the NFU will say that the cow does not get it and that the farmer does not get it. So who does get it? Could it be that the processors get it, the supermarkets get it, or the consumer gets it? Somebody must get it, so should there not be something like the Office for Budget Responsibility or the new adjudicator to clarify analytically who does get it?

Type

Oral answer to question

Reference

725 c2

Session

2010-12

Chamber / Committee

House of Lords chamber

Subjects

Dairy farming

Prices

Milk

Supermarkets

Link

View this Oral answer to question on www.publications.parliament.uk