Why it's time to restore co-operatives for farmers - Yorkshire Post Letters

Maddie Evans is spot on with her analysis (The Yorkshire Post, February 25). Farming has been squeezed by market forces for years, with agri-chemical giants pushing their products on one side and the all powerful supermarket cartel forcing farmers to take low prices on the other. It is often said that farming is the only industry that buys retail and sells wholesale.

But this wasn't always the case; the Milk Marketing Board was a producer owned organisation that controlled the production and distribution of milk, and guaranteed a minimum price for producers. The Potato Marketing Board did a similar job for potato farmers. There were regional cooperatives all over the country that acted as distributors and gave farmers negotiating clout with the supermarkets.

Those organisations had all gone by the early 1990s, victims of deregulation to allow 'the market' unfettered access to farm produce. The result has been farm incomes have fallen and have to be propped up by Government subsidies.

Meanwhile the supermarkets, food processing companies and international chemical companies make ever larger profits, our public health suffers and we are one of most nature depleted countries in the world.

The recently announced policy mandating that public sector institutions - such as hospitals, schools, and prisons - source at least 50 per cent of their food from British producers is a good start and should benefit farmers. The National Farmers Union should be taking a leading role in ensuring the success of this policy, and in standing up to the supermarkets but they spend most of their time organising protests against the inheritance tax changes.

The British public want to support farmers so surely it's time for the NFU and other farmers leaders to organise, get behind positive policies and reintroduce cooperatives.