Islanders being milked by Guernsey Dairy

VISITING family and friends on holiday I recently filled my car up at the local garage and bought a small pint of blue milk for 88p. Compared to the price and quantity one would obtain in England, which is where I domicile with my wife, paying 88p for a small pint of milk is daylight robbery, especially when a litre is around £1.50p (in England it is slightly lower for four litres of milk).

My experience dovetails excellently with the article entitled ‘Further £243,000 subsidy for farmers’ (Tuesday 21 February), whereby your government, the States of Guernsey, will pay another monetary sum to local farmers. Presumably, this money from the States Reserve Budget will come from hard-working Guernsey taxpayers, the exact same people being forced to pay obscene amounts of money for milk and other dairy products due to the monopolistic nature of living on an island with one supplier.

However, what made me laugh while eating my cornflakes, thankfully with a much better and more cost-efficient product than Guernsey Dairy milk, was the following declarations:

‘It’s kind of a consumer subsidy in a way, to keep the market price stable,’ stated Michael Bray, Guernsey Farmers’ Association president and ‘The situation farmers are in also arose out of a review of the dairy industry in 2013... with more emphasis placed on milk prices.’

If paying 88p for a tiny milk carton and around £1.50p for a litre – and these prices are without shipping costs as the milk is produced on-island – is the shining beacon of ‘price market stability’ then something is seriously amiss and misleading.

Furthermore, the 2013 review of the dairy industry really has placed emphasis on milk and dairy prices based on market and country factors as the prices are being astronomically charged now and will continue to rise in the future.

My understanding is these massive amounts of taxpayer money, from 2013 to the present day, is to protect the farmers’ livelihood and industry.

Here is an idea: spend that money on better pursuits and help the most vulnerable. This will make the farmers realise they cannot rely on hand-outs and will make them more competitive or go bust.

Why are the farmers and industry being protected so much, like the sacred Guernsey cow, while other sectors, businesses and individuals are being ignored? When will this industry stand on its own two feet and stop relying on hand-outs? How much more will the price of milk and other dairy products increase in price, or will that continue unabated and unchecked? This island seems to be heading down a path whereby the undeserving are fully supported while the most deserving are being left by the wayside.

By the time this letter is published, we will most probably be back in the UK. While I am eating my cereal using acceptable alternatives at the fraction of the price, I shall spare a thought for you Guerns being milked by the Guernsey Dairy and the States of Guernsey.

kevinhainsworth92@gmail.com

‘The plan is to develop a financially sustainable future for the dairy farming sector’

Michael Bray, president of the Guernsey Farmers Association, defends the local dairy industry

FIRSTLY, it is important to highlight that the emergency support from the States was given as a result of a number of farmers experiencing financial difficulty. The States was, and continues to be, incredibly thorough in its analysis of financial data provided by the GFA to ensure that there was a genuine and urgent need for support.

We thank them for listening to our concerns and acting so swiftly.

However, and this is despite the continuing challenges which I refer to later, the GFA recognises that this emergency support from the States of Guernsey cannot continue and is working collaboratively with the Environment & Infrastructure and Policy & Resources departments. The plan is to develop a financially sustainable future for the dairy farming sector to continue to maintain the island’s unique countryside and our heritage breed, the Guernsey cow.

I will firstly address the comments regarding the price of a litre of milk in Guernsey compared to the UK.

This requires us to compare the price paid to farmers for a litre of milk versus the price paid at the tills. Your reader questions whether ‘88p for a small milk carton and around £1.50 for a litre’ is a fair price to pay for milk, but of this the farmer receives just 33p or 67p respectively.

If we look at the UK, milk from Jersey or Guernsey cows in the UK and marketed as Channel Islands milk typically retails at £1.70 per litre, similar to the current cost in our local shops. Your reader is comparing a litre of milk from a Guernsey cow of higher quality to milk produced from a higher yielding black and white Holstein cow, which sells for £1.19 a litre (at the time of writing). With a retail price of £1.19 for a litre, the farmer in the UK receives 44p of the retail price so, in percentage terms, a very similar amount per litre. To add further context, the cost of processing the raw milk into a bottle or carton and then retailing it, is 75p per litre in the UK versus £1 in Guernsey, evidence of the higher costs of production and retailing operating on a small island. Guernsey milk is still considerably cheaper than alternatives and is an excellent natural way of getting much of the body’s daily needs of calcium, phosphorous, potassium, vitamins B and D and protein.

As a visitor to Guernsey, your reader has a remarkably good understanding of the 2013 Guernsey Dairy Industry Review and having read this should know the variety of challenges that the dairy sector faces here in Guernsey. These challenges have changed over the intervening 10 years and more recently new challenges have developed. Farmers upheld all of the conditions within the review including improving animal welfare standards to the highest standard and the reduction in environmental payments on the basis that these would be balanced by efficiencies and price stability that would result from the rebuilding and modernisation of the dairy. Ten years later, the end of life dairy is costing significantly more to maintain and operate, leading to higher production and retail prices.

The biggest change from the 2013 review was a 50% reduction in the environmental payment farmers received from the States of Guernsey. This support is paid to farmers to protect elements of the countryside and ensure hundreds of miles of hedgerows and certain habitats are preserved and maintained (at a fraction of the cost that would otherwise be incurred by landowners, the States and parishes) as well as ensuring we continue to protect the Guernsey cattle breed. This 50% reduction in the environmental payment received by Guernsey farmers resulted in 2.5p per litre being added to the milk price paid to farmers over five years and increased the retail price by more than 20p per litre.

By comparison, in the UK, after the Second World War many of the hedgerows were grubbed out and habitats were destroyed to expand field sizes and allow farmers to benefit from economies of scale and increase food security. This drove down the price of food but meant a huge area of important habitats and hedgerows were lost, something that thankfully didn’t occur in Guernsey with our Norman hedgerows and various habitats still in evidence around the island.

As a result of this environmental loss in the UK, farmers there are now benefiting from government-funded environmental subsidies and grants which are nine times higher than those paid to Guernsey farmers, and allows dairy products to be sold considerably cheaper, something your reader may not have realised.

The effects of this reduction in environmental payments upon the profitability of the farming industry, was discussed with deputies during a farm visit in 2017 with unfortunately no resolution. Since then Covid has resulted in substantial price increases for many aspects of farming, and these have been further compounded by the war in Ukraine. To illustrate this, a tonne of fertiliser quadrupled in price from 2021 to 2022 and concentrate feeds (used to balance home produced grass and silage) has increased more than 50% in two years, whilst other inputs such as fuel, electricity, shipping etc have all seen significant increases.

I hope this answers your reader’s questions and highlights the continuing challenges the farming industry in Guernsey faces. Farming is a tough industry, 100 hour weeks are the norm, and while I joke that I spend more time with my cows than I do my own children, it is true and is the same for all farmers. Despite this, every Guernsey farmer that I have the pleasure of representing is dedicated and passionate and wants to ensure that our countryside is protected.

The Guernsey cow remains iconic and all your readers have delicious Guernsey milk for their cornflakes.