The UK’s leading farming experts have warned that the price hikes to dairy products, including cheese and milk, are likely to be permanent.
The National Union of Farmers vice-chair and board member Paul Tompkins said price increases in the dairy sector are driven by soaring costs in feed, field and fertiliser,
He expects a 50% increase in milk prices in major supermarkets from next month and for the price changes to remain permanent for the long term.
Tompkins said: “Even if things were to return to normal, even if we were to reduce our costs now and be paid a fair price for milk, the implications of what we’re going through now is actually going to be for the medium to longer term.
”Margins are tight throughout the entire supply chain. I know that I’m being heaped with extra costs as a result of a whole host of factors and those are what I’m really concerned about.
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“There is undoubtedly a need for a conversation about fairness in the supply chain, and how the money moves from right from the shop shelf down to my farm gate,”
Talking to GB News, Dairy farmer Steve Evans added: “The supermarkets are a little bit twitchy, and are a little bit scared about what’s going on because all of a sudden, supply’s tight. Milk goes into cheese, and the cheese stores and right now there is hardly any hard cheese in storage.”
“People are sort of moving away or reducing the amount of fertiliser – we’re facing a winter, this winter coming, where feed costs are going to be through the roof. What are people going to do?
“They’re going to feed less, so there’s going to be less milk about to go into your doorstep delivery to your supermarket deliveries, into the cheese factories or into the value-added markets.
Evans added: “We’ve tried our best to sort of forewarning of what’s happening, what’s coming, but we can only do so much and we’re not scaremongering.
“We’re just saying how it is, this is happening and it’s real.”
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