NFR supporting our Dairy farmers

[grandad]

I do support the dairy farmers but I add brandy to my morning black coffee & lemon juice to my afternoon tea. Milk not really an issue.

[Logicalman]

Cheers Apprentice, good information and pov.

Over here we have the same issue with Walmart being the 'squeezer', though with such a vast economy, and not tied down by EU regs, I guess it's just less of a situation that gets noticed by the public.

[ron]

Interesting that it is easy to "sell" the idea of "fair trade coffee" and other commodities from overseas, but when it comes to protecting a quality product at home, the supermarkets gang up and drive prices down to below production costs.

Strange place, the moral high ground. Full of rather near sighted do-gooders.

Strange logic.  Just because the 'do-gooders' have not yet won the argument for 'fair trade milk' you accuse most of them as being short-sighted.

What would you have such people do? Do nothing or stand to the side and sneer like you?

Oh, I don't think I ever 'sneer' on these pages.....Perhaps if you read 'near sighted' (as I actually wrote), then a truer interpretation may have come about. When supermarkets in this country have so much purchasing power they can actually depress prices to at or below the cost of production, I would say that the near sightedness there involves seeing no further past the amount of profit they can make by bullying what are smaller scale concerns. If they do the same abroad to producers of coffee, cocoa, etc then it is called immoral, savage, etc. Do it in this country, and it becomes 'a way of getting cheaper milk to the consumer.   .... (And of course keeping up profits at the same time.)

Sneering? No. Just pointing out that it is equally immoral to depress milk prices in this country as commodity prices anywhere else, but the moral high ground lies overseas, in promoting fair trade there.

[Apprentice to the Maestro]

Interesting that it is easy to "sell" the idea of "fair trade coffee" and other commodities from overseas, but when it comes to protecting a quality product at home, the supermarkets gang up and drive prices down to below production costs.

Strange place, the moral high ground. Full of rather near sighted do-gooders.

Strange logic.  Just because the 'do-gooders' have not yet won the argument for 'fair trade milk' you accuse most of them as being short-sighted.

What would you have such people do? Do nothing or stand to the side and sneer like you?

Oh, I don't think I ever 'sneer' on these pages.....Perhaps if you read 'near sighted' (as I actually wrote), then a truer interpretation may have come about. When supermarkets in this country have so much purchasing power they can actually depress prices to at or below the cost of production, I would say that the near sightedness there involves seeing no further past the amount of profit they can make by bullying what are smaller scale concerns. If they do the same abroad to producers of coffee, cocoa, etc then it is called immoral, savage, etc. Do it in this country, and it becomes 'a way of getting cheaper milk to the consumer.   .... (And of course keeping up profits at the same time.)

Sneering? No. Just pointing out that it is equally immoral to depress milk prices in this country as commodity prices anywhere else, but the moral high ground lies overseas, in promoting fair trade there.

You did say 'near-sighted do-gooders '. Your clarification seems to be saying that by 'do-gooders' you were referring to the supermarkets. I am afraid that, in general, I do not equate the large supermarkets with do-gooders so I thought you were referring to those who verify fair trade deals or those who buy fair trade products.

I am of the rather cynical view that the big supermarkets sell fair trade coffee because there were enough buyers who were buying in preference to other brands and that it was simply marketing on their part.