Latest figures show producer margins are going elsewhere

摘要

A Milk Development Council report on retail margins has confirmed that these are increasing across the EU as supermarkets exert their power, and that in the UK the import of value added product is making matters even worse while we continue producingcommodities. The MDC report makes depressing reading. Its confirmation of the declining share of the price of liquid milk reaching farmers is no surprise -but it looks all the more bleak when what has happened since the end of the Milk Marketing Board era is set out in black-and-white. In 1995 UK farmers received 58% of what consumers spent on liquid milk, but that has now slumped back to 39%. Even that was in 2004 and when figures are published for this year the percentage may be even lower. The situation is equally bad in some other EU member states.