Farmers For Action steps up protests against Arla and retailers

FARMERS FOR Action has stepped up its protests about Arla’s recent price cut and has warned that demonstrations will escalate this week unless the cut is reversed.

Protests were staged over the weekend at an Arla processing plant in East Sussex, an Asda depot in Leicestershire and a Morrisons site in Cheshire.

Close to 50 farmers blockaded Arla’s Sheffield Park processing site in East Sussex on Sunday night (Jun 26) until 1.30am.

They also stopped eight fully-laden lorries, which had been moved to a nearby industrial estate, from moving off.

David Lunniss, a consultant who runs the SKS Dairy Group, said the protests would continue until Arla backed down.

“We will keep going until we have Jonathan Ovens’ (Arla Foods Milk Partnership chairman) and Tim Smith’s (Arla chief executive) resignation and a climb down on the price cut,” he said.

David Handley, FFA chairman, also told FARMERS WEEKLY that the fight would go on.

“They [Arla] aren’t going to win this one,” he said. “We will escalate things this week.”

Mr Handley added that retailers would continue to be targeted because they appeared not to be doing anything about price cuts.

“We want clear decisive messages from all the retailers, else what they got last night they will see more of.”