It’s in everyone’s interest to give dairy farmers the chance of a sustainable future.

It’s in everyone’s interest to give farmers the chance of a sustainable future.

The UK could have been made for dairy farming. When you travel as much as I do it’s easy to see why we produce the finest milk in the world.

We have such an abundance of grassland – let’s face it, we’re not short of a bit of water at present – and it’s well managed by farmers who really care about what they do.

I’ve noticed this more over the years because I grew up in Cheshire, well-known for the dairy farms that speckle its beautiful countryside.

There are few sights better than the rolling fields of the Cheshire Plain viewed from the Mid-Cheshire Ridge on a summer’s day. When you take in that view it becomes easy to understand the scale of tragedy that would ensue if we were to lose our dairy farmers. Our collective loss would be far greater than superb home-produced liquid milk.

The public seems to instinctively understand this. If our farmers go, who will look after the countryside that so many of us enjoy? That’s why the protests staged last month over the price of milk struck a chord with so many non-farming families who are themselves struggling with shrinking household budgets.

Business must be lean and competitive, especially supermarkets, but we should never lose sight of the importance of our farmers and the subtle roles they play in all our lives.

They are producers of commodities and food but they are also stewards of nature who often lead tough, relatively isolated lives centred on their farms.

Incomes can be limited – as little as £6,000 in some cases – and they are at the mercy of Mother Nature. For food retailers a spell of bad weather may mean slow moving barbecue lines.

On the farm it can mean the difference between making it through another year and losing a business that has been in the family for generations.

That’s why I think it’s great that many businesses are supporting initiatives, such as the Prince’s Countryside Fund, that do so much for farming families and rural communities.

Waitrose has always had the interests of British farmers close to its heart, as enshrined in our Championing British policy. For example, along with some other retailers, our milk price takes into account costs of production, giving our farmers a sustainable return. We also look at their investment needs and have an honest, open communication policy that allows sharing of best practice.

Last month we launched the Waitrose Farming Partnership, an initiative to bring our farmers useful targeted benefits of scale including membership of the agricultural buying cooperative Anglia Farmers (AF).

We’ve worked closely with AF and the projected savings are considerable in animal health, machinery, electricity, building materials and telecomms, as well as on main farm inputs.

We are also flexing our buying specifications to allow fruit and veg growers hit by bad weather to bring to market some produce that wouldn’t normally make it to shelf. This may mean a bit more mud on peas or strawberries that are a little smaller than usual, but our customers understand and love the idea.

All these initiatives are aimed at giving our farmers the helping hand they so badly need. I haven’t heard a single farmer ask for charity. All they want is a fighting chance. I think it is in our best interests to make sure we give them just that.

  • Mark Price is the managing director of Waitrose