Milk production

[Mike]

Its a sad time for dairy farmers in the UK, amazingly 2 go under every day in the UK!

This means that we are now buying ina record million litres of fresh milk daily from Holland, Belgium and Northern Ireland.

Milk is one of my favourite things, and its terrible to see what the supermarkets are doing by squeezing them out of business.

BBC NEWS | Business | Britain milk imports hit record

[Louis]

Wow, does our milk really come from abroad? Such a basic thing and it needs to be imported! Is it purely down to price or is it down to the fact that there is not enough supply from the UK?

I still don't understand how these things can still be cheaper than home produced goods, especially when you account for transportation costs and the fact these are developed countries so the wages they pay are not tiny...

I was staggered that I could buy a litre of pommegranate juice from my local Turkish shop in a glass bottle for £0.99!! How on earth something like that can cost so little is beyond me...on a quick list of factors I had:
- Wages
- Overheads in factory
- Transportation from Azerbijan
- Glass bottle
- Label
- Shop owner's mark-up

[Mike]

It baffles me too! I just dont get why if its not ecomically viable for our farmers it is for them, I mean in the modern EU thet should all get the same grants shouldnt they?

Id be happy to pay extra for me milk if i knew any of it would go to the farmer and not bloody tescos

[whodefu]

always amazes me the amount of things that are brought in from abroad while people who make or produce the same things in the uk are in trouble, there seems to be no reason for it and it seems to be getting worse...

[Greenbean]

Um, yeah.

Moving right along...

I'm in the US, and we have a similar issue with big grocery stores trucking in produce and milk and other products from miles away. This not only produces a disconnect between people and the food they eat, but it's also a huge waste of fuel.

I try to do what I can by buying what's labeled "local" at the grocery, and renewing my membership in a nearby CSA farm, so that I know where it's all coming from and I can support local businesses and not require so much diesel-burning in my diet. :-) Specific to milk, I tried to get home delivery from a local dairy, but they don't do apartments. So instead I pick up a local brand that's carried in the grocery. This brand comes in glass bottles that the grocery pays me $1.50 each for when I return them, so there's laundry money too. ;-)

It's really tasty milk, too!