MP George Osborne takes farmers’ milk price concerns to Downing Street (From Knutsford Guardian)

MP George Osborne takes farmers’ milk price concerns to Downing Street

1:10pm Sunday 5th August 2012 in News By David Morgan

TATTON MP George Osborne has met with a farming family who fear that a crisis in milk prices could put them out of business.

Production costs for milk are around 30p per litre.

But Robert and Sarah Williams, of Curtis Hulme Farm, will be paid about 26p per litre by Robert Wiseman Dairies from August 1 due to a collapse in the value of cream.

Sarah has taken a second job at a nursery in Holmes Chapel and Robert is working 90 hours a week to make ends meet.

Mr Osborne, pictured talking to farmers, said: “Having met the Williams family in Westminster recently, it was good to visit the farm and see the challenges that their family business faces for myself.

“We had a good discussion and I have taken their concerns back to Downing Street.”

Meanwhile, Cheshire East Council leader Michael Jones, has written to Jim Paice, Minister of State for Agriculture and Food to express the authority’s ‘serious concern’ at dairy farmers’ plight.

He said: “By early August a significant number of our farmers will have seen the price they receive for milk reduce by 15 per cent over recent months, leading to severe economic hardship and, in some cases, decisions to go out of milk production altogether, losing a heritage which goes back many generations.

“The impact on the wider rural economy could be devastating. Over the past 20 years, dairy farmers across the country have striven to become ever more efficient, they have been successful in this but there is a point beyond which they cannot go.”