It may seem perverse but I will go out of my way to pay more for milk. It makes me furious to see two litres selling for the “bargain” price of 65p in my local corner shop.

It’s not a bargain at all; it comes at a terrible cost to farmers and to the cows that are endlessly bred, pumped, primed and medicated for higher yields in an effort to reduce the gap between the price the farmer gets for his milk — around 18p a litre — and what it costs to produce it — about 21p. Per litre Sunny Delight costs almost twice as much as milk.

So I cycle another half-mile to a shop that sells organic milk on the basis that the cows are probably less stressed and that a penny or two of the higher price may filter down to the farmer.

The best thing I could do would be to buy from a local dairy that processes its own and its neighbours’ milk and sells direct to shops and delivery rounds, thus saving on food miles and cutting out the middle tier of big processors such as Dairy Crest. But I don’t live in dairy country and there are no processors of liquid milk left in Oxfordshire. Instead I buy my milk from Waitrose, which at least guarantees its farmers a premium of almost 3p above the Dairy Crest base rate (but doesn’t pass on the cost to the consumer).

When it’s in stock at my local branch, I buy Manor Farm organic milk because I know the provenance and it tastes so good. Milk is one of the basics, like bananas, with which supermarkets fight their price wars. When they put the squeeze on, processors such as Dairy Crest turn round and pass it on to the farmers. A few weeks ago Asda dropped the price of a four- litre carton of milk from £1.16 to £1; within hours, other supermarkets had followed suit.

One way farmers can protect themselves is to form co-operatives, doing their own processing and selling direct to retailers. Dairy Farmers of Britain (DFoB) was formed two years ago to get better price control for members and to add value by selling local, branded milk such as their Definitely Yorkshire and Definitely Cheshire.

Douglas Roberts, an Essex dairy farmer, joined DFoB recently after years of selling through Arla, one of the major processors with whom farmers have recently had a row about price squeezes. He now sells all the milk from his herd locally, into doorstep deliveries, small retailers and garage forecourts. Ten years ago, Roberts was getting 26p a litre for his milk: “We were making a decent living,” he admits, “but since then there has been a downward spiral, forced by supermarkets and processors. Unless prices improve there will be a massive movement out of the industry.”

Already, every day in Britain, three dairy farmers give up the struggle. Production is consolidated into larger herds: almost a third of our milk comes from cows that never see grass but are fed on concentrates and kept in yards to conserve their energy for higher yields. A herd of black and white milkers grazing peacefully on green pasture is one of the iconic sights of our landscape and many of us would gladly pay a penny or two more for our milk to keep them there.

“Customers willingly pay a premium for free-range eggs,” says Professor John Webster of the animal husbandry unit at Bristol University. “The answer to the crisis is to value-add on milk too, to market free-roaming, high-welfare milk and charge more for it.” Till then, we should buy organic milk to let the supermarkets know that we care about provenance, welfare and nutrition.

Dairy Farmers of Britain has nine regional dairies processing milk from the farmers in the co-operative: www.dfob.co.uk. Manor Farm organic milk: www.manor-farm-organic.co.uk. The Soil Association: www.soilassociation.org.
Abel & Cole deliver Berkeley Farm organic milk from Guernsey cows: www.abel-cole.co.uk. Riverford Organics delivers its own milk: www.riverford.co.uk

Is it time to stop following the herd

Holsteins are "super cows", producing up to 60 litres a day, 20-30 litres more than Friesians

Organic milk contains more beta carotene, vitamin E and omega-3 than conventional milk but there is no difference in the amounts of calcium of vitamin B12.

The past two years has seen a 50 per cent rise in organic milk consumption: it accounts for 2 per cent of sales nationally. Demand outstrips supply so we import from Denmark.

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