Lib Dems would ‘enforce’ fair trade for British farmers  

At the Lib Dem conference in Bournemouth yesterday he said the four major supermarkets ‘massively abuse their power’ and pledged his party to introduce a ‘food market regulator to enforce fair trade for British farmers’. 

Mr Farron used the dairy sector as a prime example of how farmers were ‘taken for a ride’ by the retailers. 

“This year across Europe the price that supermarkets pay farmers for their milk has gone down by nearly a third – but the shelf price that you and I pay for a litre of milk has hardly changed. 

“The farmers’ incomes are slashed, the consumers don’t benefit and the supermarkets pocket the difference

“This situation is not just immoral, it’s completely stupid,” he said.

Mr Farron said it was ‘tragic irony’ when supermarkets sought fair trade from around the world but failed to look after its own dairy producers. 

“Millions of consumers go to the supermarket each week, go down one aisle and buy fair trade Columbian coffee and then go down the next aisle and buy the milk from an exploited British dairy farmer.

“And the same exploitation happens right across our food market in every sector of farming,” he said. 

The Lib Dems pledged to tackle the situation by introducing a ‘powerful’ food market regulator.

“While we would support the idea of an ombudsman in parliament we think he would be reactive and toothless.

“We want to go further and introduce a proactive supermarket regulator like the French have and like many states in the USA have, which goes out looking for trouble.

“The regulator will asses farm gate prices compared to shelf prices and make a judgement based on a code of practice to see whether supermarkets are abusing their power.

“This way you do not wait for farmers to cry foul to the ombudsman, which many will not because they worry about losing their only buyer,” said Mr Farron.  

Have your say

Please do not complete the following form field for security reasons.

Name

E-mail

Comment

Post as

Anonymously

Display name