Intensive Dairy Farming

I join in congratulating my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips) on securing this debate. Any discussion in this building about the plight of rural communities, in particular the agricultural aspects of it, is encouraging. If I may, I would like to start with some of the economic context which my hon. and learned Friend mentioned, and quote some figures. I do this as a brother-in-law of a dairy farmer, the son of a dairy farmer, and the husband of a dairy farmer's daughter—hon. Members will get a general idea of my position. At present—admittedly, this is only one set of figures—farmers are producing milk at a loss of between 1p and 2.5p per litre. The dairies sell their products for a profit in the region of 4p to 5p, yet certain supermarkets—I shall try to be careful about naming them—are selling at a profit of 22p a litre. That is the economic context which my hon. and learned Friend mentioned. I absolutely agree with him that the buying public, if they were aware of the muscle that is applied by supermarkets, would greet that knowledge with a certain amount of disdain and, indeed, disgust. Let me take that a stage further. One supermarket prides itself on paying its suppliers a rather higher price—about 28p a litre. If the truth was known that only 800 suppliers—some 10%—qualify for that price, the public would raise an eyebrow. In addition, the supermarket in question does not fork out that extra amount itself. Instead, it has insisted on the middle man at the dairy negotiating a more stringent price with the supplier. What did the dairy do? The dairy froze its payments to farmers who are not providing that supermarket, which meant consequentially that their price was reduced. Although that supermarket is obtaining good public relations for distributing press releases talking about fair trade for farmers, it has not been impacted on at all. Yet all those farmers who are not lucky enough to provide that supermarket chain have been penalised. That is the actual, factual economic context behind this important debate. That is why—there is no other reason at all—we are looking at the prospect of super- dairies, if that is the right expression. I want to inject a degree of measured middle ground, if I may. It is obvious that, increasingly, farmers recognise that scale is the only way that they can make money. I am not talking about making large sums, but about making sufficient money not to go bust and to be able to invest in new technology, which is not just desirable for milk production, but is required by law in the current economic and legal climate. I represent an area of west Wales in Carmarthenshire, in probably one of the largest milk-producing areas in the UK, where there is a significant problem of tuberculosis in cattle. Fortunately, that is a debate for another day. I am aware, through my constituents, that there is an attraction to housing cattle indoors as far as possible, because doing so reduces the risk of infection from TB and enables farmers to bulk buy feed and bedding materials. Hon. Members will be aware that feed has never been more expensive than it is this year. It is also clear that production on a larger scale reduces the chances of pollution. We are all aware, sadly, of the incidences of pollution as a consequence of leaking slurry tanks and the like over the years. Fortunately, there has been a decrease in such instances, partly because of housing measures that people have put in place and are increasingly under pressure to implement. There is an argument, whether it is proven or not, that indoor milk production reduces the carbon footprint of particular farms. Other hon. Members will no doubt expand on whether that is a compelling argument. I am not trying to justify or promote large-scale dairy production; I am simply trying to set out what my milk-producing constituents see as an essential consequence of the supermarket grip on the industry, and saying that they regard themselves as being much more likely to be able to invest decent sums in modern technology—we have heard about anaerobic digesters—under such conditions than they would be able to under any other system.