Prices force dairy farmer to sell herd
AFARMER who won an award for a campaign to encourage supermarkets to increase the price of milk has lost his business.
Mike Gorton, 59, who runs Harebarrow Farm in Over Alderley, says he can no longer afford to produce milk after prices were slashed to just 15p per litre earlier this year compared to 30p last year.
Instead, the farmer of 40 years has had to sell his 30 cattle to a neighbouring farmer.
He said: “I was pig sick when I had to make the decision to stop producing milk, but my debts were mounting up and at the same time cattle values were falling.
“I had to make the decision to do a deal with my neighbour instead.
“It was either that or my parents, both in their eighties, would have lost their home as the farm is a tenanted one.”
He added: “The cows went in the lorry and my dad, who started this business more than 40 years ago, couldn’t even come outside.
“He just sat on a chair in the house from where he could see the top of the lorry taking the cattle away. “He was in tears”. Mike, who is also the National Farmers Union (NFU) North West Dairy Board chairman, will now rear what were once his own cattle on behalf of his neighbour, who has a contract with the supermar- kets which mean he still gets paid 30p per litre, compared with the 15p per litre Mike was getting.
Mike added: “The neighbour bought my cows which meant on the Monday I was getting 15p a litre for my milk and by the Tuesday, the same milk was going for 30p, as he is allied with the supermarkets.”
Just 16 per cent of British farmers have such contracts with supermarkets however, the rest left in the same predicament as Mike, something he says is ‘unsustainable’.
He said: “We have got to get back to a situation where all elements are able to make a profit.
“I have lost my business but am supporting bigger businesses. The cattle I sold were my pension so that’s gone now too.
“There are just less than 10,000 dairy producers in the UK and I can see that halving down to 5,000.
“Then all the market will end up doing is sucking more imports of things like cheese and butter in from other countries”.
He added: “I now see myself as a supplier in a partnership.
“I’ve done nothing but dairy farming all my life so at least this way I can carry on.”