Food and farming activists have called on the UK’s leading supermarkets to treat suppliers better as farmers are “struggling to survive” under current practices.
An open letter with more than 100 signatories including Sustain, The Soil Association, chef Rick Stein, Dragon’s Den star Deborah Meaden, and presenters Julia Bradbury and Jimmy Doherty, claims that agriculture is “on it’s knees”.
The letter, which forms part of the Get Fair About Farming campaign, is calling on the chief executives of Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Morrisons, Aldi and Lidl to change their “all too often imbalanced, short terms and wasteful” buying practices, The Times reported.
This comes as vegetable box company Riverford Organic, which launched the campaign, found that 49% of British fruit and veg farmers say it’s likely they will go out of business in the next 12 months, with many blaming supermarkets and their buyers.
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One in five farmers have suffered a wasted crop due to cancelled orders from supermarkets and just under a third have seen grocers failing to pay them within 30 days.
As a result, the campaign urges supermarkets to commit to Riverford’s Fair to Farmers charter of principles, which includes paying what has been agreed, buying what has been committed to buy, agreeing on fair specifications, committing for the long term and paying on time.
Sustain CEO, Kath Dalmeny, said: “Farmers and food suppliers need far better protection from unfair and sometimes abusive practices by the big supermarkets. Retailers make unreasonable demands, create waste and keep too much of the value.
“Our own research shows that farmers and growers typically get less than a penny of the profit on packs of everyday foods. Government must step in and strengthen the rules so that more and better fruit and veg is available and affordable for all.”
