news story

24th June 2009

MP Backs Local Dairy Farmers Following Collapse of Co-Operative

Northavon MP Steve Webb taken up the concerns of local dairy farmers with ministers, following the recent collapse of the Dairy Farmers of Britain co-operative.

Local farmers who have lost money that they invested in the co-operative have sought the MP’s support, and he has written to the Environment Secretary, Hilary Benn, urging him to offer compensation to all those who have lost out. Some stand to lose tens of thousands of pounds from the sudden collapse of the grouping.

The MP has also signed a Commons motion (text below), calling on Mr Benn to intervene to ensure that the farmers receive payment for the milk they have supplied through the co-operative.

Commenting, Steve Webb said:

“Local dairy farmers are already struggling in the current economic climate and the collapse of their co-operative could not have come at a worse moment.

“I am deeply concerned at the impact of this collapse on local farmers and I am doing all I can through Parliamentary channels to ease the burden that they are facing at this difficult time.”


Note:


EDM 1618: DAIRY FARMERS OF BRITAIN

That this House is appalled by the collapse of Dairy Farmers of Britain which went into receivership owing £50 million to its 1,800 members; is deeply concerned that the impact on the UK dairy industry and on individual dairy farmers and their families will be devastating; deplores the banks' deliberate timing of the calling in of the loan to Dairy Farmers of Britain, causing the calling in of the receivers to maximise the benefit to secured creditors at the expense of those member farmers' May milk cheques; calls on the Government to underwrite the payments that Dairy Farmers of Britain were due to pay to dairy farmers for milk supplied in May or to force Dairy Farmers of Britain's bankers to pay the May milk cheques; also calls on the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Prime Minister to intervene to ensure that buyers do not exploit stricken dairy farmers by paying sub-market prices; and endorses the Farmers Guardian petition which urges the dairy industry's biggest customers to both buy British and to ensure that dairy farmers receive a fair return for their produce.