Becky Robertson, pictured, is a milk maid who is highlighting the national scandal of the prices supermarkets pay milk producers
Just a fortnight ago, she was getting up at 4.30 every morning, working an 18-hour day and going to bed at 10pm — poorer than when she started.
Today, her routine and financial circumstances are exactly the same. Except that Becky Robertson and her pals have rapidly succeeded in elevating this deplorable situation into a national scandal.
Retail giants have now been dragged to the negotiating table with the National Farmers’ Union and the food industry. MPs are being bombarded with complaints.
The public are finally waking up to the fact that the national theme park known as ‘the countryside’ could be irreparably damaged in a matter of months if our supermarkets do not stop driving down the price of milk and forcing Britain’s dairy farmers out of business.
A rural movement is under way and it’s thanks, in no small part, to this plucky 26-year-old Gloucestershire farmer and her young friends.
For they are the creators of the ‘Milk Trolley Challenge’, a national protest movement which has made headlines around the world, infuriated shop managers and made them the toast of rural Britain. And despite the image of an industry dominated by lugubrious old men, they are a young and upbeat crowd.
‘We’re fighting for our future in an industry which has no minimum wage,’ says Becky. ‘And once it’s gone, it’s gone. It won’t come back.’
Tonight, all over Britain, posses of young farmers and their supporters will descend on unsuspecting supermarkets, scoop the entire milk supply into trolleys, take it all to the tills and then leave — forcing the supermarket to re-refrigerate it all within minutes or fall foul of food regulations and have to junk the lot.
In some cases, the protesters may pay for their haul and then hand it out to passers-by for free, or tip it down the drain. One furious Staffordshire farmer even brought a couple of cows into his local Asda the other day (though most farmers think this was ‘going too far’).
On each occasion, the protest is filmed and posted online. And it has acted as a catalyst for a series of summer protests — including temporary blockades of entire retail depots — which have delivered a series of concrete results.
Just two days ago, for example, the Morrisons chain — which initially refused to negotiate with protesters — suddenly announced a new milk range paying an extra 10p per litre back to the farm which produced it. That would not have happened without this fresh show of strength — and the enormous public goodwill behind it.
Over the past year, dairy farmers have seen the ‘farm gate’ price of milk — what they receive per litre — drop from profitable to break-even to a substantial loss.
Many factors are involved — including a strong pound (making imports from Europe cheaper) — but by far the biggest factor is certain supermarket chains slashing prices. Some will sell milk as a ‘loss leader’, losing money themselves in the hope that customers will be lured in to spend more on other items.
As a result, farmers have seen their incomes drop by more than 20 per cent. But there has been no drop in their outgoings. Typically, it costs farmers around 30p to produce a litre of milk. Those fortunate enough to supply the more responsible retail chains — notably Waitrose, Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s and Tesco — are still being paid enough to cover most of their costs.
But the majority of dairy farmers, supplying the rest of the retail industry as well as cheese and dairy manufacturers, will be lucky to get 24p for it. In remote parts of Wales, the price is down to 16p per litre.
Within months, significant numbers across the country will be forced to sell up. If so, for the first time, this milk-loving nation will no longer be self-sufficient in liquid milk.
Tonight, all over Britain, posses of young farmers and their supporters will descend on unsuspecting supermarkets, scoop the entire milk supply into trolleys, take it all to the tills and then leave
Dairy farmers clear supermarket shelves of milk in protest
The knock-on effect is already being felt across the industry as dairy farmers stop buying new machinery, hiring contractors and investing in new cattle. Nor is this just about milk. Supermarket price wars have put many lamb producers in a similar situation.
And that is why Becky Robertson, who farms 130 pedigree Holstein dairy cows with her parents on the family’s 300-acre farm, finally snapped over breakfast the other day.
‘My dad had come back from a farmers’ meeting the night before very low because nothing was happening. I just thought, “We have got to get the public interested,” ’ she explains.
‘How can people pay more for bottled water than fresh milk? So I booked the local social club and contacted my friends.’
Meeting this determined face of modern farming, I am not surprised more than 60 neighbours answered her call.
A few hot-heads advocated a French-style confrontation. One suggestion at Becky’s meeting was to spray slurry (liquid excrement) over a supermarket car park. But she was not having that. ‘Whatever we did, it would need to be legal and not inconvenience the public,’ she says.
Then tractor driver Nick Thompson suggested something along the lines of the ‘Ice Bucket Challenge’, the recent craze for tipping a bucket of iced water over one’s head and posting film of it online. In this case, the task was to clear shops of milk.
They decided to target the local town of Yate, choosing retail chains paying well below the going rate for milk. ‘We went in the evening, when most people have already bought their milk,’ says Becky
They first chose budget supermarket, Lidl. ‘They had no idea what was going on, and just watched,’ says Becky. ‘Then we went to Morrisons and the manager went mad, saying he’d call the police. We’d already checked what we were doing is legal, so that was fine by us. And we made sure that we didn’t stop anyone who wanted to buy milk.’
On each occasion, the protest is filmed and posted online. And it has acted as a catalyst for a series of summer protests — including temporary blockades of entire retail depots
Just two days ago, for example, the Morrisons chain — which initially refused to negotiate with protesters — suddenly announced a new milk range paying an extra 10p per litre back to the farm which produced it
The next day, film of the incident was posted online and was an instant hit. Copycat raids on supermarkets from Cornwall to Scotland were soon organised.
Crucially, as protests grew, so did support from the paying public. Unlike a petrol price war, here is one element of the household budget for which large numbers of ordinary people are quite content to pay a few pence more.
Until now, agriculture’s angry voice has been the pressure group Farmers For Action (FFA). Now there was a new kid on the block. Yet Becky has absolutely no interest in personal glory, let alone any national role. A precondition of our interview is that it is made clear that this is just a local team effort.
You can easily see how devoted the Robertsons are to their cows. ‘We don’t want to be rich. We just want to look after our herd,’ says dad, Michael Robertson, 55, who started milking cows aged 12. Along with his wife, Lynn, 50 (also a dairy farmer’s daughter), he has worked hard to make a go of the family farm.
A nd once their daughters, Becky and Rachel, had left college, the couple were starting to think about a quieter life. ‘Dad thought, with two girls, there wouldn’t be anyone to pass it all on to,’ laughs Becky, who had trained as an accountant.
But she never lost the farming bug. Having bought a couple of cows herself, she devoted more and more time to her herd until she decided to work full time on the farm.
Scottish dairy famers and their families, in Asda in Ayr, Ayrshire, Scotland, holding a guerilla protest against the supermarket and other supermarkets to highlight problems with pricing
‘That’s when we took the decision to make a big investment in the future with more cows and more machinery,’ explains Michael. But having based their business plan on a price of upwards of 30p per litre, they are now getting 21p.
‘The only reason we’re surviving is we don’t pay ourselves anything, and Mum and Dad have got me instead of a member of staff,’ says Becky.
When did she last have a holiday? She laughs and can’t remember. ‘But I’m really looking forward to seeing my mates at UK Dairy Day in Telford next month.’.
Out in the fields, she can identify every animal by name, but is devoted to her first purchase, hugging a docile monster called Cotton which is due to produce a calf at any time.
Meanwhile, there is work to be done. The herd needs milking and there is another protest to organise. Come 9pm, Becky and her friends will be in cow-themed ‘onesies’ piling up the trolleys with milk in a Bristol branch of Asda.
They make a point of filming all the milk and its cost alongside the — much pricier — bottled water section. By 10pm, she will be in bed.
Some will argue that these antics have achieved no more than making work for Britain’s shelf-stackers. Not so. They have got us all talking about a crisis for the countryside which already dwarfs the 2001 of foot-and-mouth outbreak.
Because this is a disaster for the entire dairy sector — with no prospect of compensation when farms collapse. Britain has already lost half its dairy farms in just 15 years — there are now only around 10,000 remaining. Leading West country auctioneer Derek Biss tells me that it’s a matter of ‘two to three months’ before we lose many more.
Yet it’s not all doom and gloom. As long as the likes of Becky Robertson are still coming through the ranks, I’d say that British farming still has a future.
