Milk processors 'recruiting new suppliers'
Monthly milk production for May was down by 4.8 per cent compared to the same month last year.
UK milk production is falling, according to the latest figures from AHDB Dairy, and milk processors are said to be actively recruiting new suppliers.
Monthly milk production for May was down by 4.8 per cent compared to the same month last year. Speaking to farmers at the Royal Welsh Show, National Farmers Union (NFU) dairy board chairman, Michael Oakes, said processors are worried about under-supply, Farmers Weekly reports.
"We have been in an over-supply situation, but already some of the major processors are going out to recruit suppliers. They are getting worried about where they are going to get their milk from."
But NFU Cymru's dairy board chairman, Aled Jones, said lessons must be learned from the dairy crisis, which has had a crippling effect on farmers. "We must come out of this far stronger. The problems we have today need new ways of thinking," he is quoted by Farmers Weekly as saying.
While farmers have historically produced milk hoping that a buyer will collect, process and pay for it, this must change in future, Mr Jones added.
The greatest opportunities may lie in commodities and the dairy industry "needs to understand how it can be positioned to compete in cheese and other commodity manufacturing," AHDB dairy chairman Gwyn Jones added.
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