ONE can only feel sorry for dairy farmers in their present predicament. I wonder how their problems could have arisen.

Is it that any leverage that farmers might once have had to negotiate payments has been lost because there are so few processing firms which, in consequence, allows them to dictate what they pay?

I’ll bet that the shareholders of these processing firms don’t suffer a cut in their dividends.

When I was young, I used to help out at a local dairy farm – bring the cows in from the fields, fill their trough with titbits and, at the end of milking, harness the horse to the float and deliver the milk to local dairies.

This farm used to produce what was described as TT-tested grade-A milk.

All the milkmen were dressed in white from head to toe, which made the milking parlour seem more like a hospital surgery than what it was.

Then someone would come regularly to the farm from, I think, the Milk Marketing Board to make sure the milk was up to standard and, in the end, the farmer would get a guaranteed price. This was delicious milk and quite unlike the awful stuff that we get today. I’ve tried to get decent milk but, so far, without success.

It was suggested that the processors were supplementing their supplies by buying in cheap milk by the back door.

This poses two questions: are milk producers in the rest of the continent able to produce milk more cheaply than we are? Or is this back-door milk surplus which is being sold off cheaply?

It would be interesting to know what consumers pay for milk in other countries.

DERRICK HOLT, Fortnam Close, Headington