New model milk contract unimpressive

I HAD a call from the NFU suggesting it was time to put up the bunting and crack a bottle of bubbly to celebrate the arrival in the world of the new model milk contract.

A template document that, I was assured, would rapidly turn round the fortunes of the dairy industry which have been heading downhill at an ever-increasing pace for as long as I can remember

Having inspected its contents I am persuaded, however, that the bunting should remain in the box and the bottle of pale ale (which is what passes for bubbly in this household) ought to stay firmly capped.

Because I cannot see for the life of me what difference this is going to make to the miserable existence of thousands of dairy producers.

Does it for instance, force the retailers to pay a fair price for their milk? No. Does it place any kind of onus on processors to be fairer and more generous in their dealings with farmers? No.

The only material difference I can see relates to exclusivity; no processor will have the sole rights to all the milk from one farm, so if a producer wants to run a specialist Jersey herd alongside his black-and-whites and sell to a specialist he will be free to do so. As for the rest, you could drive a milk float through all the loopholes I can see.

The really annoying element in all this is that it has taken five years to get this document drawn up – five years of farmers having their hopes raised by promises of jam tomorrow.

And as usual Defra has got it entirely the wrong way round. There was a preliminary consultation with farmers but now the contract has been pretty well set in stone without farmers having the chance to approve or comment on it – hence the defects.

Many fundamental issues, too, remain unresolved. What happens if the processors don’t like being constrained in this way and simply get out of the liquid milk market – which they always claim costs them money to remain in? What then?

And why has no one, not in Defra, not in the NFU, had the backbone and determination to draw up a contract system which tackles the real, fundamental issue in all this? This being the fact that the retailers are selling milk at prices which haven’t really shifted in 20 years and, out of farmer, process and retailer, only the retailer can expect to see any kind of reasonable margin.

But if this is already looking as big a joke as the laughable ‘code of conduct’ Gwyn Jones once drew up, announcing it was going to cure all the industry’s problems, the real laugh is in the way it is going to be made to work.

Which will inevitably involve – since the Government has got its mitts on it – a mini-quango, formed of assessors who will consider any grievances farmers are minded to raise under the contract’s terms and, if they feel it’s merited, pass them on to an adjudicator.

I wonder which member of the brotherhood will be offered the adjudicator’s job – perhaps (since it will necessarily be someone with a bit of time on their hands) the Efra committee chairman Neil Parish who doesn’t appear to be doing much else.

One thing is certain though; it won’t be a particularly demanding position, the bar for food industry adjudicators having been set so low it would be difficult to slip a fag paper under it, thanks to the dismal showing by the so-called groceries code adjudicator Christine Tacon. She has now shuffled across, I see, to head that other failing organisation Red Tractor, such a haven of mediocrity that anyone who arrives able to sign their name and remember the date will be acclaimed as a star.

I was momentarily tempted to have a go at the dairy industry adjudicator’s job myself; after so many years at the sharp end of the business I thought a first-class seat in the gravy train might be a nice change.

On the other hand, since I know which end of a cow to put the feed in and which end the milk comes out of, I would probably be rejected as hopelessly overqualified for the job.

As for the rest, you could drive a milk float through all the loopholes I can see