Originally from: Farmtalking
                        
Thu 29 Aug 2002 From the Scotsman.

http://www.thescotsman.co.uk

Walker ready to step back into role of action-man

Fordyce Maxwell

IN URGING Scotland’s dwindling band of dairy farmers to picket supermarket distribution centres on 19 September, Jim Walker, president of NFU Scotland, threatens to come full circle.

Five years ago his inspired off-the-cuff speeches to thousands of farmers at Stranraer dockside protesting against cheap beef imports and ruinous home prices made his mark.

Two years later he was president of the union, struck an immediate rapport with Ross Finnie, rural development minister of the new Scottish Parliament, fired farmers and even the civil service with his passion for change and drove the industry through the foot-and-mouth crisis.

Now, advocating the sort of picketing and disruption usually associated with David Handley and Farmers For Action, there is an indication that Walker has hit what marathon runners call "the wall" – that moment when they are trying as hard as ever, but feel as if they’re running backwards.

Walker won’t have that any more than he will accept that NFU Scotland is borrowing tactics used by Farmers For Action. He says that the planned 19 September protest, certain to go ahead unless the supermarkets announce an unlikely price increase, will be only the first of a series of demonstrations "because farming businesses are on the line".

Most at risk are dairy farmers, down to about 1,800 from a post-war peak of more than 8,000, struggling against the lowest average milk price in Europe, a defeatist attitude from their own co-operatives and grazing and winter fodder problems because of the awful summer.

Protests are also planned about cheap grain imports and cheap pig products. But the priority for September is milk, with an average farm-gate price in Scotland of less than 15p per litre. Average cost of production is put at 19p and the average supermarket shelf price is 45p.

First Milk, the biggest UK dairy farmers co-operative, is now being forced to pay the lowest price in Europe – less than 20 (£12.78) per 100 kg of milk compared with an Italian price of 39 (£24.92) and a European Union average of 28.56 (£18.25).

First Milk’s price is down more than 30 per cent on last year, compared with an EU average drop of 6 per cent.

Walker said it was essential that Britain’s co-ops stopped competing with each other to buy milk. That could only be at the expense of the individual dairy farmer as supermarkets squeezed the processors.

Negotiations start soon among supermarkets, milk processors and dairy co-ops. He said: "We are already involved in direct talks with them, but if we don’t get a clear signal that farmgate milk prices will rise, then protests start on 19 September. Farming businesses are on the line."

He also insisted that Scotland’s dairy farmers – "first to moan, last to act" had to get off their backsides and make their point. It’s déjà vu all over again.