At one level Tesco’s decision to put a new price deal to dairy farmers (Report, 4 November) is welcome; at another it is a further step towards customer confusion and disappointment for farmers.
As former head of campaigns at Christian Aid in the 1990s I was involved in the development sector work on fair trade that led to the setting up of the Fairtrade Mark. Today you can walk into a UK supermarket and find products from the global south carrying the mark but no such scheme for UK/EU farmers exists.
Individual supermarkets are developing their own responses, when what is needed is a uniform scheme with all chains agreeing to stock fairly priced, UK farmer-friendly products carrying a clearly identifiable and universal certification label.
To achieve this either the Red Tractor Scheme needs to extend its scope to include the price paid to UK farmers or a new certification scheme is needed. Only then will a mass consumer-led campaign in support of a fair price for UK farmers be workable.
Paul Brannen MEP
Shadow EU agriculture spokesperson
