Technology gives farmer and local food producer tools to do job well

Technology is a wonderful thing, enabling me as I write this article to also monitor the dairy crisis meeting in London — where UK farming minister Jim Paice is sitting with his head in his hands, on the back foot, unable to provide dairy farmers with any coherent answers.

British milk producers have reached the end of their very long tether, and the minister is between a rock and a hard place: between farmers who want a living, and a government that wants cheap food. He can’t deliver both at the same time, but will need to assuage some of the demands of the farmers, if he is not to find himself the undertaker of the UK dairy industry.

As one farmer said — in 1985, he paid 9p/litre for diesel, and now its 79p. He paid £80 for fertiliser that is now £280. He paid £90 for cattle feed, which is now £300. Yet, he gets just 4p a litre more than in 1985 for his milk. “How do you expect me to keep going?”