Which takes me neatly on to the subject of badgers in general. In many ways the industry is in more or less the same place on TB and Defra’s proposed badger cull as we were on Nocton and large scale farms – an emotional public issue; majority but not universal support within the agricultural community; a desperate need to persuade the public; well organised and motivated opponents; and a supportive but hesitant government – let’s be honest, what percentage of voters is going to benefit from this? We didn’t succeed on Nocton. Can we get it right this time?

Well, a checklist of good advice emerged this week, and we would be well advised to heed it. First, if you want to get the public to accept badger culling, get badger lovers to explain why it’s necessary. Second, you must explain to the public why a cull is in the badgers’ long term interests, not the farmer’s. Third, use a mix of science and emotion. Science on its own won’t work. Fourth, social media is the best way of winning the hearts and minds of the public. And fifth, commit early to adequate resource.

It’s the resource issue that may be the problem. With Nocton, although everyone was affected, the bill was picked up by only one man. When he reached the ‘whites of the eyes’ stage, he decided it wasn’t worth it. This time, the NFU have rightly put themselves at the front of the campaign. If no-one else comes in, they too will reach the ‘whites of the eyes stage’ and they too will have to judge if it’s worth it. I applaud their move to bring back Anthony Gibson to reinforce the comms effort. That’s a good decision, but will it be enough? And will the lessons from the past guide the direction of the future. Time will tell. There’s a tough battle ahead.

On Wednesday, Kirk and I met up again at the Scottish Parliament. That’s the place where everyone tries, but no-one can catch the Salmond. We spotted a really nice Parker pen on the floor which someone had clearly dropped. “Aha”, said Kirk, “That’s the wife’s birthday present sorted out, then”. I suggested that with a name like his he should adopt a more ecclesiastical approach. “Names should guide behaviour”, I said. “In your case too?” was the reply. We turned to listen to the speaker. He was from one of Scotland’s foremost cake and confectionary makers. His name? A. Baker!

Friday 2nd September

In a furious day of transfer activity on Wednesday, Dairy UK agreed fees and personal terms with a number of new recruits including Ian Potter, Mansel Raymond, Derek Mead and Tim Bennett. Unfortunately they all failed their medicals, so the Dairy UK squad for 2011/12 will go forward proudly unchanged. Being a London centric organisation we’ve got Gooners amongst us, foremost of whom is Fiona. She is ecstatic about the arrival of Michel Arteta. Some years ago I watched Arteta play for Rangers in a losing Scottish Cup final at Hampden. For almost the whole first half he tried to dribble his way round a black plastic bin sack which had blown on to the pitch. I’m pretty confident that if Arsene Wenger had been there, he’d have signed the plastic bin bag. Yes, Wednesday was a day of panic, and sheer utter irrationality. And if because of the ongoing hot summer nights you’re have trouble sleeping, just spare a thought for poor Harry, the man who said no to £40,000,000. Phew!

For me, winter in the UK starts the day after the end of your summer holiday. But in this office the hot sun is still blasting through the windows inducing lethargy and stupor. I am perplexed by reports of widespread driechness and that it has been the coldest summer in thousands of years, because everywhere I’ve been I’ve been frazzled. OK, I accept that if you spend a couple of weeks on the Amalfi coast, which is where I was, you don’t exactly expect to check the ski reports, but even there, the locals were gasping for breath. Now back in London, I search the weather forecast each day praying for cool. But my confidence in weather forecasts waned some time ago after the great Ian McAllister, complaining about the lack of trained meteorologists on commercial TV stations, told me that once their weather forecasters had said good morning, they’ve already told you more than they know!

I did take advantage of the sun to travel down to the south coast to meet a Member of Parliament on a farm in his constituency in Sussex. This was a farm with a diverse range of businesses including a tearoom and a stall selling locally grown herbs. We had a choice of seats next to a section prominently marked ‘Sage’. Obviously I deferred to the Honourable Member. He was after all a Government Minister. He too had just returned from holiday abroad, and in discussion he complained, as so many used to do, about the lack of British products on foreign supermarket shelves. “We make the finest cheeses in the world” he said. “Why are they not visible overseas?”

I started to reply, but mentally I drifted straight back to the Amalfi coast, where I’d just spent 10 days eating cheese with absolutely everything. Mozzarella with tomatoes to start, in and over the pasta for main, and ricotta in pastry for dessert. I asked the locals, do they eat at home the same food as in Italian restaurants? Yes, they said. Yes, getting British cheese into this mix is very important, but I kept wondering how do we get British consumers to eat cheese like the Italians? In our drive to get more milk into added value products in the UK, I see cheese very much at the heart of it - almost the trailblazer in fact. But it has to be with a combination of innovation, branding and generic activity. There is lots of activity in the first two, but do we pay enough attention to the third? And I mean encouraging continental eating habits in British consumers. Is it even important?

Well, this is one of many subjects which will be covered at the Dairy UK conference in Birmingham on Monday when Professor Mike Johnston, CEO of the Dairy Council for Northern Ireland will give us his views. I look forward to seeing you all there. And of course at the glittering Dairy UK pre Dairy Event awards dinner on Monday night. Our pre-dinner speaker on Monday has enticed me with an advance example of some of his material…” I was asked for a new computer password” he tells me. “It had to be 8 characters. So I used Snowwhite and the seven dwarfs!”. Yes, a diamond and no mistake, although “away’ngetaff” is my comment. We can anticipate a truly spectacular evening.

Friday 26th August

Yes, it’s me, the Pieman, briefly guest blogging whilst the DG continues to sun himself in foreign parts.

“The Pieman” is not exactly a very flattering pseudonym, is it? To be honest, I have a problem with names. Not only am I terrible at remembering them, but my own has been something of a burden to me throughout my teens and adult life. Clint Eastwood, Graham Hill or Jonny Wilkinson I could have lived with, but sharing a name with an ex-Radio One DJ has been something of a trial. A few years ago I did a series of radio interviews about cheese. Having just completed a relatively straight forward piece for Radio 5 Live, I was transferred across to the Drive Time programme for Radio 2, which was then presented by Chris Evans. I was counted in and the first thing I heard was the “Our Tune” music, which continued to play in the background throughout the interview. That was certainly enough to throw a chap off his stroke in front of millions of people, I can tell you!

As many will know, I have a passion for cheese, which is why I have been so interested in the media furore surrounding the latest offerings from Blur bassist turned cheese maker, Alex James. Alex had previously been feted in the press for his Blue Monday and Little Wallop cheeses and his Britpop credentials had moved coverage from the food and lifestyle pages into mainstream news. His latest offerings include cheeses flavoured with tomato ketchup, tikka massala, salad cream or sweet chilli, and as a result James has now been accused of selling out his artisanal credentials.

In this country we produce 700 named cheeses. Most people, however, tend to stick to a handful of favourites. I am always given the job of providing cheese for dinner parties. Recently a couple of friends insisted that they didn’t like blue cheese. After much persistence I persuaded them both to try a salty blue cheese with a small glass of very sweet pudding wine. One of them loved the combination and is now a convert to blue cheese, the other didn’t, so you can’t win them all.

British cheese makers produce some of the most sublime cheeses to be found anywhere in the world and these are undoubtedly our flagships, but the cheese market is so much more than these premium products. Mr James’ new contributions are unlikely to threaten any of our finest offerings but maybe, just maybe, they will encourage some people to expand their horizons and try something new, thereby generating incremental sales and bringing greater value into our industry. Like cheese with tomato ketchup, it’s got to be worth a try!

Friday 19th August

Very few people in the dairy industry have seen Dairy UK’s Director General on his knees - I’m one of the few that has. I’m the Queen Bee and the unusual incident occurred in my office earlier this week. It all began when my phone stopped working. Fortunately Jim was on hand (or should I say, on his knees) to sort it out and explain to me where I’d gone wrong. After leaping to his feet he said “I haven’t had this much trouble with a blonde since the last time I tried to explain the offside rule.”  “That’s okay Jim,” I said cheerfully, “I may not be able to fix a phone but I know all about the offside rule, I’m a big ice hockey fan.” Three hours (and a couple of headache pills later) I understood the error of my ways and had even learned new words like ‘football’ and ‘Alex Ferguson’. Fortunately, at that point, Jim’s boss swept in and whisked him off on holiday. She explained that he’d need a lie down to recover from the shock of discovering he was sharing an office with someone who’d never heard of Jock Stein or Matt Busby. Happy holidays Jim!

A few things have been buzzing about in my brain this week and I want to share a couple of them with you. One was a piece I read in an overseas newspaper. The piece was titled “rabbit food diets still unproven” and the author, Andy Ho, may just have become one of my heroes. His article told the tale of a vegan sending him a book called the China Study and demanding that he immediately read it. It’s a book we know well here. It’s has been waved at us many times by anti-dairy groups as their ultimate proof as to why they think we should all ditch dairy. The book is written in a way that could suck the untrained in science into believing the twisted information within. Fortunately, my hero of the moment saw right though it and using data from China’s own ministry of health poked great big holes in the book’s underlying suggestion that the Chinese are healthier than us Westerners because they have a plant based, whole foods diet with little meat and dairy. He also very eloquently pointed out to his readers that the author of the book, Dr Colin Campbell tells a different story in his peer reviewed scientific papers than he does in his bestselling book. Strike one for common sense!

The second was a great piece about milk and sport. A new study from McMaster University has shown that milk rehydrates children better than water. The study is really good news for the industry particularly, in the run up to the Olympics. What isn’t such good news is that while our counterparts in the States, Canada and Australia can talk about the study to consumers, in Europe we’re prevented from doing so because there is no approved European health claim for milk and rehydration. Whilst some of the British public might read a few lines on the study in their newspaper, as an industry we can’t openly talk about the results in our consumer communications. For now, we are confined to taking the message to health and fitness professionals.

And finally, before I give Jim back his blog, I wanted to leave you with some quotes from the testimony of an eleven year old elementary school student to the District of Columbia Committee on Youth Issues as he pleaded with the Committee who had banned chocolate milk sales in this school (in the aftermath of Jamie Oliver’s media stunts in the USA) to have his chocolate milk back. “Since the new law was passed, 58% of kids who used to drink chocolate milk at school are no longer drinking any dairy product at school. They are missing out on all of the calcium they used to get. I interviewed a doctor and asked her, Is it better to have chocolate milk or no milk at all? She said, It’s better to have chocolate milk.”

 I wonder what the DG is drinking on holiday. I hope it contains calcium!

This week I ventured into the surreal world of advertising and media. It was only a brief visit but spectacularly successful on my part. I listened to sales people from Sky television promote their channel as a vehicle for our future milk advertising. I learned so much from what they said that I was able to reduce my own personal monthly payment to Sky by £28, plus I now get an additional Sky product free. I also learned which of the Sky channels are the ones where they show big money bonanza programmes to lure new customers, such as Sky 1 and Sky Atlantic. I’d never previously had the pleasure of these, so to speak. The Sky people seemed surprised at this, given that I was the only person in the room who also received Sky broadband. But how do you find them?  My remote control only goes from Sky Sports 1 to Sky Sports 4 Extra and then back again. Maybe I should broaden my horizons. There may be another world out there!

More pleasure came later in the week with the arrival in the war torn capital of Briggers and Cotto from the RABDF. They’d come up from the country to join forces with Dairy UK to deliver to Defra our expectations from the new Animal Health and Welfare Board (AHWB). In a clear ‘we shall not be moved’ message to the looters, their haute couture very definitely reflected the season.  Indeed it looked like they’d slipped a couple of Havanna jackets over their speedos, and donned some matching loafers, obviously not recently acquired, to exude a ‘they don’t like it up ‘em ‘spirit with immaculate subtlety.

In complete contrast, the message to Defra was anything but subtle. The success of the new body will be judged almost totally on its effectiveness on TB. Defra, and the newly appointed AHWB chairman, Michael Seals, may be approaching this new venture thinking that it’s all about finding out where the money which the Government spends in this area actually goes, and getting something done about it. And indeed, the dividing line on responsibilities between Defra and the new Board on animal welfare is still somewhat blurred. However TB is the obvious connect. Solve TB and you go a long way to sorting out the money. So there is a mutual interest. But if the Government’s proposals on TB are delivered Mr Seals may be able to walk on water. If they don’t, I have a strong suspicion of where the blame will lie.

All of this and more will be on the agenda for the upcoming dairy event of the year where social interplay, wit, charm and sophistication will blend seamlessly with intellectual debate, enlightenment, vision and understanding. All of this, at the Dairy UK Conference and Dinner on 5th September at the Birmingham Metropole Hotel. Please do not miss this splendid occasion. I’m keeping a ticket just for you, because although I am bound by the stifling restrictions of discretion, I know that the winner of this year’s prestigious Dairy UK Annual Award is almost certainly going to be you, and you must make sure that you, all your friends and family, and your PR advisor are all there to see it.

The aforementioned Cotto will chair the Conference, with his customary Bohemian flamboyance. We shall debate all the controversial issues of the day and no expense has been spared to bring in global experts to inform you on markets, contracts, scientific research, genomics and breeding, promotion, media and image, and disease management, to name just a few. In the evening more education and learning will flow from our friends at DairyCo and the Milk Marketing Forum, before entertainment and accolade take over. It’s truly a mouthwatering prospect and yours in exchange for a token contribution which does no more than allow us to wash our face. Honestly. I’ll see you there.

Friday 5th August

The holiday season is on us. Defra, the whole of Brussels, and the European Parliament are all on the beach. I’m told they now make swimsuits with pockets for Blackberries, so be careful guys before you go in at the deep end. In my view, another good reason for sticking with the Speedos you know.

But at Dairy UK, we never close, albeit this week with a skeleton staff. Now the Pieman is not normally a man who is comfortable with the description of skeletal, but I have to applaud his stoicism as I delivered to him today, on the last day before he goes on leave, the five words in the English language that fill him with fear and trepidation … ”Simon, I have an idea”.

Holidays definitely change people. A colleague of mine, and a fellow Rangers supporter, has returned to work wearing a pink shirt. Whoever heard of a Rangers fan wearing a pink shirt? He said it’s not pink, its raspberry. No, I said, that’s what you’ll get when your wife sees it! He hasn’t been home yet since returning from the tragedy at Malmo. He shouldn’t have been there in the first place, because all Rangers fans were banned following inappropriate behaviour previously. So only 4000 of them made it to the game … all identically dressed in Abba gear and clutching IKEA catalogues. This was to make them inconspicuous ……..! It wasn’t organised or anything, it’s just how all Rangers fans think. Great minds etc etc.

But with another week, so we have another DairyCo report, this time on Farmer Intentions. It follows their reports on margins and price transmission. Now I’ve been … shall we say .. taken to task .. by DairyCo for what they feel has been a selective analysis of their previous work. This has led to a healthy and, frankly, enlightening exchange of dialogue and correspondence, which we’ve both enjoyed. And I accept, fully, that they are constantly trying to seek balance. So am I. Worryingly, however, when you look at these reports collectively, they are somewhat at odds with the DairyCo company song viz ‘Always look on the bright side of life’.

Refreshingly, the conclusions of the excellent Farmer Intentions Survey Report are a huge relief to me. Ok, there’s an edging down of confidence, and there’s evidence of a growing divide amongst the haves and have nots, but against a background of soaring farm costs, it could have been so much worse. As I say regularly, it is everyone’s responsibility to see the confidence index amongst dairy farmers spiral upwards, because in my view confidence is as important as reality. The former precedes the latter, and if you are in any doubt, watch tonight’s evening news on the causes of the latest financial crisis. It’s all about confidence. And if you don’t believe me, just ask my friend after he’s returned home tonight in his pink …eh, sorry, raspberry coloured shirt.

And, finally, last Friday was a busy media day for the Dairy UK family. I was interviewed for BBC News in the South West on the Select Committee report. Mike Johnston was interviewed live on BBC NI on the Milk Cup. And again, live on BBC NI, at half time, as the experts were being interviewed in the studio, behind them on the pitch you could see one of these Zorb things being pushed along by a posse of conscripted volunteers. And who was inside? None other than the Queen Bee, rolling along a.o.t. with 4000 spectators cheering her on. Yes ‘Milk It’ is the campaign strapline, and milking it is what she was doing, but is the Dairy Council spinning out of control? Well, as the picture elsewhere in this newsletter proves, it’s always nice to see things from a different angle. Nuff said!

Friday 29th July

You will all be aware of the special skills of the Venezuelan brown bat. The Venezuelan brown bat can detect and avoid individual raindrops in mid-flight, arriving safely back at its cave, completely dry.  These skills go some way to explaining why the Venezuelan bat is indeed brown. There is a little bit of the Venezuelan brown bat in all of us I think. At Dairy UK, would that it was only raindrops we had to avoid.

This week, we’ve been wrestling with ‘raindrops’ from the House of Commons Select Committee with their Dairy Package report, and to a lesser extent, DairyCo with their Asymmetric Price Transmission report. Well, we’ve been sloshing about for sure, but we’re far from under water. And of course you have to deal with these things at two levels.

Yes, reports affecting the future of the dairy industry have been falling out of the sky like confetti this week. The poor Pieman has been wabbit managing the complicated process of aligning media deadlines with report publication dates. Sweat has been leaping from his brow, for sure. I’ve been avoiding the fall out, brown bat style. He can certainly now spell the word ‘embargo’....which is more than the officials at one parliamentary committee can do. When we phoned up this week for more details on one of their Select Committee reports the conversation ran as follows – “how did you find out about that?” “Eh, it’s on your website”. “Oh my god. That’s a mistake. We’ve broken our own embargo!”

For me, this week’s frenzy has been interspersed with the pleasures of the Nantwich Cheese Show. It inevitably started with a radio interview which took place in the middle of the blue cheese section. The Farming Today correspondent, bless her, started her intro as follows...”I’m now standing beside the smelly stuff....and I’m talking to Jim Begg, Director General of Dairy UK”. Right, I thought. She clearly didn’t think much of my Lynx!

The show was, as ever, impressive, but I always feel that it is worthy of a grander stage. In recent years it has gone international, but I don’t think that strengthens it. It has the potential to be the supreme platform for British dairy products, but the stage is shared with imports. It is an “event” without the marketing budget to make it a public extravaganza and a triumph for the demonstration of British and regional provenance. I hope one day it realises its full potential. It is also not without its amusing moments, and the comments of the local mayor in his welcome address are worthy of a wider audience. He had refused to eat cheese at school because he didn’t like the holes in it. A wise teacher had told him to eat around the holes and leave them at the side of the plate. He duly did, and he’s never looked back.

Finally on these reports, and their advice on the dairy industry. All of them in my view make the same basic mistake. They all advocate political solutions to what are essentially commercial issues. If we want to increase our wealth and the distribution of money down the supply chain, it won’t be with regulations. It will be by understanding the operation of markets, by being competitive on farms and in factories and by selling into profitable added value markets. Maybe next week, I’ll issue a report!

Friday 22nd July

Wales is moving on impressively, but Abergavenny has missed out. I found myself in a bar there on Monday night, exactly a year to the day since I was last there. It was one of these friendly pubs where everyone is part of every conversation. The barman greeted me with exactly the same joke as he had the last time. "Before you ask, we have no Brains." Everyone guffawed. So I gave him exactly the same reply as I had before. "That's OK. I brought my own. And I'll only need a half pint pot". Everyone guffawed again. We were all getting on like old friends, which of course we were, but somehow I managed to change the atmosphere completely. I only asked a simple question: "Does anyone mind if I put the Scissor Sisters on the juke box?” Suddenly everyone looked ... er ... sheepish!

There's nowhere to sit in Wales. One of my meetings at the cow show necessarily took place at a table right bang in the middle of a cocktail reception. Tim and Duncan from DairyCo saw nothing odd in this. They said that when they listen to me, it helps to have a drink at arm's reach. Inevitably, we were soon engulfed by the glitterati of the Welsh dairy industry. Powerful representatives of the Welsh farming industry like Eifon Hughes, Terrig Morgan, and Stephen James phalanxed round me in a kind of “well what about the milk price then, boyo” manner. I was nervous. After all, a man has to be aware of where his next custard pie is going to come from.

But of course I had nothing to fear, because in my view, Wales is a land of magnificent contrasts. When it’s raining, Wales is the most dismal place on earth. When the sun shines, it's truly inspirational and awe inspiring. And the dichotomies are all around you at the cow show. When you arrive you have to get past rows of tacky retail stalls like you were in a Marrakesh bazaar. Everyone looks gloomy. But when you reach the main ring the vista is stunningly dramatic, oozing with the passion and pride of Welsh agriculture. And these men towering above me at the cocktail reception, savage and ferocious in debate, argument and leadership in defence of their interests, become gentlemen, poets, and ambassadors in the company of guests and strangers....although to be perfectly frank, Terrig does need a haircut.

I was there when the Defra announcement on badgers came through. There were wistful looks all round, because the Welsh Minister courageously fought that battle, and lost. Now it's up to the English Minister to take up the baton. And along with everyone who earns their living from the countryside, I hope that she has the resolve and determination to see this one through to the bitter end. All of us saw the TV interviews last week with the farmers affected by TB, and it's really sickening. But make no mistake, this is going to be a tough one. And as the public consultation on the TB measures progresses, the education of consumers on the importance of this is going to have to be up front and convincing. Of course the argument must be evidence based and driven by science, but it's on emotions that the battle will be won or lost. We would be less than wise to ignore this.

As I left the showground, I noticed a newspaper headline about 'fixing' which I understand is the practice of artificially dressing up cattle for show. I turned to Terrig and smiled. "Is that why all the sheep here are wearing lipstick, Terrig?" I asked. "Oh yes, Boyo, for sure" he smirked. “Brightens 'em up, you see. Makes them perform better. Have you never seen the Scissor Sisters?”

Friday 15th July

I love the game of golf. However, I have an equal and opposite loathing of golf clubs. And by that I mean the institutions and not the sticks.

In my view they are all totally unacceptable bastions of male privilege and small minded bureaucracy. And I mean all of them, despite the universal protestations of all golf club members who claim that 'it’s not like that at our place'. In my experience, it absolutely is.

I am occasionally invited by friends to play at my local golf club. On the first tee there is a sign with a list of rules that would not embarrass a Dickensian workhouse. Recently I found myself reading through these rules conscious that I was violating almost every one of them. I finally lost it when I came to the rule which required that my shorts (designed and pressed) could only be worn with full length socks up to my knees. Believing that only my playing partner was in earshot, I let out a stream of 'See you Jimmy' style vitriol. In fact, the club captain was standing behind me, forcing me to convert instantly to grovelling apology mode. "That's all right", he said. "There are no restrictions here. We encourage free speech."

This weekend I'll be at Sandwich for the British Open. I had bought the tickets before realising that The Royal St George's Club doesn't accept lady members. Shocking, but what's a man to do. I think I'll wear my kilt as a protest of extreme subtlety.  Look out for me. I should be easy to spot on the TV.

Golf is an excellent form of exercise. But as some unkind commentators regularly observe, exercise is a rapidly diminishing feature of my portfolio of interests. I fear I am not alone amongst the members of the Dairy UK staff.  And yet daily, each of us walks by a collection of Boris bikes to gain access to the office. I'm willing to bet that none of them have ever seen the dark side of a Dairy UK posterior. But the tide of change is upon us. Following a visit by the Department of Health's Director of Health and Welfare last week, and a meeting on Monday with Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, I am committed to integrating Dairy UK into the Department of Health's Responsibility Deal. This is a Government project which assists industries (ie. Dairy UK) and employers to take responsibility for the health of the nation in general, and their workforces in particular. One strand of it simply requires organisations to commit to pledges that will deliver healthy workplace practices. We've discussed this in the office and some interesting suggestions have come forward. These include strapping pedometers to our legs and setting targets for more walking (rejected by the Pieman because "the pedometers are too heavy") and taking the chairs out of the meeting room so everyone has to stand (still under active consideration).

But the other strand of the Responsibility Deal is more serious. It's concerned with diet and consumption, and includes making pledges to reformulate food. So far, no dairy companies have signed up to this, but after a very positive Board meeting, we are on the brink of setting up arrangements with the Department of Health which will allow a constructive input from the dairy companies to the formulation of collective industry pledges from which individual company pledges can then flow.

As we embark on this process, which we hope will replicate arrangements we previously had with the Food Standards Agency, an important principle must be recognised. Reformulation comes hand in hand with re regulation. The latter, if properly undertaken facilitates the former. If companies reformulate to produce 'healthier' products they need to be able to make claims to reflect this. If they can't, they won't. Worth thinking about this.

The office is quiet now, with only the Pieman left waiting for this article. But hold on, is that a pedometer he seems to be strapping to his ankle? By jove, I think it is. Oh well, it’s a Boris bike to Waterloo for me. Come on Rory.

Friday 8th July 2011

It’s amazing how different people interpret the same information differently. An excellent example of jumping to wrong conclusions came across my desk this week. A couple were sharing a bottle of wine on the patio in the sun. She said “You know I really love you. I just can’t imagine life without you.” Glancing up from his Blackberry, he said “Is that you talking, or the wine talking?” She replied “It’s me talking,....to the wine”.

With this thought uppermost, I listened carefully to the messages emanating from the Commission’s Advisory Group on milk in Brussels. I didn’t want to make a mistake.  Over 100 experts setting out their views on how the markets will move in future. Short term, long term, in between term, everything. 7 hours of information flow. With good intent, the Commission had called the meeting to make sure that everyone had a clear idea of what was coming down the line. The object was to get everyone to react ‘responsibly’ and avoid the boom/slump regime we’ve had since 2007. Was this a new form of cheap market management? Only if you’re naive enough to think it will work.

What I took from it was markets working more or less normally with supply, demand and price following an understandable pattern. A period of non extreme volatile stability can be anticipated, subject to what happens with China, the weather, and currencies - mostly the latter two. Nowadays a range of new, fairly radical sounding organisations (RSOs) attend these meetings. They heard the same things as me. But they interpreted the market as being on the brink of another crisis. They repeatedly asked the Commission for ‘guarantees’ to cover impending disaster. They wanted ‘tools’, ‘support’ and ‘protection’. So in the room we had the RSOs searching for political solutions, and the Commission searching for commercial solutions. I wondered who’d win that battle. The answer came meaningfully , 24 hours later, with the now annual visit  to the UK of the messiah from New Zealand, Sir Henry van der Heyden. Since his last visit Fonterra, the company which he chairs, had become the world’s biggest dairy company. “How’d you do it, Henry?” I asked him. “Easy,” he said. “The more that EU industry looks for political solutions rather than commercial solutions, the stronger my company gets.  But don’t give away the secret”, he said. So I won’t. Shh!

The Queen Bee is now giving dietary advice to Dairy UK staff. Flushed with her own success in that department, visible to all, she’s helping the rest of us become shadows of our former selves. My discussions with her inevitably ended up in a negotiation. We compromised at me giving up fried foods. That’s quite a concession because it more or less restricts the pleasures I get from life to pies, pints and curries. However, at the Dairy Supply Chain Forum meeting this week, the Queen Bee forcibly demonstrated that her weight loss programme had not affected the tail in which she keeps her sting. She visibly shook Farm Minister Jim Paice by revealing that soon French manufacturers of Camembert may be able to say “contains Calcium” on their packs, while British cheddar manufacturers may not. “Sacre Bleu”, screamed the expression on the Minister’s face. But it’s true. People think we’re joking when we warn about the risks of underfunding nutritional science in this country. But we’re not. Just wait and see.

Finally, my daughter ‘Cool As’ and I went back to Wembley to watch Take That, 16 years after we last went to see them at Earl’s Court when she was 8. Looking around, I observed that exactly the same people whom I’d seen at Earl’s Court were there again at Wembley. We’ve all agreed to meet up to watch them again at the O3, in 16 years’ time.  Wembley is a no smoking venue, so it was amusing to watch a girl being asked to put out her cigarette, while fireballs were exploding all around on the stage. And what were the band singing while all this was going on? You’ve guessed it. Light My Fire. Everything happens in threes!

Friday 1st July 2011

I mean, come on. Let’s face it. No-one should really get worked up about tennis. It’s really only an excuse for a beer in the summer while you’re waiting for the football season to start. And, I suppose, it helps to understand which parts of the world the ‘ovas the ‘itchs and the ‘ovskys hail from. But Rufus the Wimbledon hawk, that’s another story. Engaged to keep out predators from the Centre Court, he (or for all I know, it may be she) performs his task with ruthless efficiency. Perhaps there’s a role for Rufus in charge of Dairy UK door policy. I’ll think about the idea a bit more before giving it the bird.

Perhaps the most famous thing about the Riverbank Plaza Hotel on the Albert Embankment is that it’s the London residence of David Hay the boxer. He has had a gym built at the back. The close proximity of the World Heavyweight champion had clearly had an impact on Food and Farming Minister Jim Paice, who was in fighting form at the Dairy UK Annual Dinner in London last night. His range of hooks, jabs, and uppercuts to the body landed repeatedly on his target – the British dairy industry.

It was a heavyweight performance. He pulled no punches. But it was also a fair one. And the audience cannot have failed to appreciate where he was coming from. He highlighted the positive potential of the industry to develop, within its own resources, to greater things. He clearly set out the challenges which would deliver this. He also stressed that effective collaboration would avoid the need for regulation. So from our point of view that’s a challenge worth fulfilling.

I want to reassure Jim on a couple of points. No-one in this industry would be unconcerned, as he inferred, if it shrunk. That was the accusation which could have been justifiably levelled against governments in the past. Everyone is working feverishly for growth. Similarly, there is no prospect of markets becoming less competitive in the future, or that companies or customers will curb their drive for market share. That is a given. Nor is any kind of national plan likely to be successful. I’m pretty clear that solutions to take us forward will come from industry, and be market driven through a range of individual decisions by the supply chains in the business. However, he’s right to ask the questions. That’s his role.

Afterwards, I was detained in the bar moralizing and philosophising much later than intended. I know who was to blame, but I would never name names. I have too much respect for the ladies from DairyCo to do that. This morning I edged wearily towards the DES Board meeting with some trepidation. But I need not have been concerned. Irn Bru is the universally implemented morning after cure for Scottish hangovers. A thoughtful fellow countryman on the board had brought enough for both of us. It worked a treat. After all, it’s made from girders.

Friday 24th June 2011

Do you ever find yourself shouting at the car radio during phone-ins. Yes, me too. I became particularly 'vexed' this week while travelling to the cow show at Ingliston. The issue was the proposals from the British Olympic Association that Scotsmen, Welshmen and Northern Irishmen should play football for England in the Olympic Games. After listening to me for a while the boss said, "Don't you feel that sometimes, on some subjects you can be small minded, narrow, insular and stuck in a time warp?" I thought for a moment and replied, "I refute any suggestions that I'm narrow". It'll never happen. But what do I care? I'm ticketless.

Scotland is definitely changing. In the hotel at Edinburgh airport, I was served a green salad with my haggis. I assumed it was a mistake, and sent it back. But it wasn't. I was there for the Dairy Council Board meeting. The room had its own jelly bean machine for the free use of delegates. When I turned the handle, unbelievably, all the beans which came out were green. That was the first time I'd ever seen green beans in Scotland. Amazing. Some things never change, of course.

Later, at the cow show, I bought a Scotch Pie. It had been cooking all day, and the crust was absolutely concrete hard. To compensate, the girl gave me two concrete pies for the price of one. Bless her!

The Lions Rampantant above Ingliston flew proudly and stiffly, more proudly than I’ve observed in the past. I reflected inwardly that if anyone has shares in Scotland, this is not the time to sell them. If there was ever a hint of an inferiority complex, it’s been replaced with a confidence and optimism and a clear vision of the future. Why? Well let’s not spend too much time working it out, let’s just get on with turning it in to profit.

Agriculture symbolises the optimism of the country and is being rewarded with an immensely supportive Farm Minister Richard Lochhead who appeared at Ingleston to ride the wave. Being nationalist, he wants to do everything agricultural for Scotland, divorced from the rest of the UK. Many within the industry are keen to follow suit. But I would urge caution, because it’s not always the most efficient way. The Dairy Package, for example, implemented differently across the UK would place national fervour above common sense.

If there is an agricultural King of Scotland, then he must be young James Withers, currently CEO of the NFUS, but shortly to become new CEO of Scotland Food and Drink. The Scottish Government has just stuffed his sporran full of bawbees to spend on developing the Scottish food industry and I’m confident that he will do this wisely. His first challenge will be to sustain the Scottish “brand” in foreign export markets such as England, where consumers increasingly favour “local”. Got to it, young James, say I, you can achieve what Bonny Prince Charlie couldn’t.

Murrayfield was absolutely stappit for BonJovi. On the way in, the boss declared that she was only there out of duty, and said she couldn't recall a single BonJovi song. But soon, she was jumping up and down. I asked her tentatively if she was enjoying herself? She said she was merely trying to keep the blood circulating in her veins.

The band sang “we’re half way there ...” I listened and just smiled.

Friday 17th June 2011

It’s June in London, so of course I’m looking out at the cascading, relentless, unremitting rain. This week, it’s been pouring down on the open air rock concerts, Royal Ascot, the test match, and all the summer sausage sizzle receptions. It misses no-one. Shelter under a tree, wait till it recedes, step out from under your cover, and within seconds you’re drookit.

I’ve achieved a life time ambition this week. I took a £55 hit, just to see Don MacLean sing ‘American Pie’ live. I just wanted to hear that one song and it was memorable. Mercifully it was also dry, but all around me people sat in these transparent rain condoms, waiting for the next downpour. What a country!

Even inside the office our spirits have been dampened by Fergus the Green’s forthcoming life defining significant birthday. He’s realised that he’s only achieved 10% of the items on his ’20 must have done by…’ ambitions list. So for the next two weeks he’s going to be dating movie stars, travelling in a rocket to Mars, and buying mansion house estates in Berkshire. Don’t give up, Fergus. 30 is very old, but it’s all still possible. I’m a bit of a last minute man myself.

Frustration has continued to reign throughout my week. I’m in the office today instead of being at the one golf day I try to attend each year. And I’m here because the lawyers, accountants and advisers that we engage, albeit sparingly, continue to charge fancy but deliver slowly. Everyone chips in an extra effort during economic recessions but I think that it’s this country’s ‘professions’ that should spend a bit more time in front of the ‘ethical’ mirrors. But my day has again been disrupted by the emotional and evidence scarce article in today’s Independent on the use of antibiotics on farms, linking overuse to large scale farming. The first line of this reads ‘Here is a news story that could determine whether you live or die’. Good grief. Again we have the increasingly common problem of emotion being much more interesting and readable than fact. So what do you do?

Well first you have to recognise and be aware that it is a consumer issue. Then you have to pump out as much factual information as you can. That’s how the NFU successfully persuaded the WI. And above all, you must not swerve from engaging in the correct production practices on farms and in factories, all the time explaining to consumers what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. And if they demur, then you have to change, but if you explain first, and you have evidence, they won’t demur. It’s an ongoing battle, but one we’ll win with evidence, communication and persistence.

It’s Father’s Day on Sunday. Just like dads everywhere, I’m waiting to find out how much my children appreciate me. The boss has been asked to find out subtly what I’d like. I’ve subtly indicated that I’d like each of them to relieve me of one hour’s weeding in the garden. I understand that this request has been subtly but flatly rejected because “we can’t tell the weeds from the plants”. We’ve subtly compromised on three transparent plastic rain condoms. Three, because much to my chagrin, once you take one out the pack, you can’t use it again. So Bon Jovi at Murrayfield next week and Take That at Wembley the week after, here I come. The third one is for the next ‘Travis’ concert. It’ll probably cost me another 55 quid, and for sure they’ll sing ‘Why Does it Always Rain on Me’. But this time, I’ll not be the one who’s Wet Wet Wet.

Friday 10th June 2011

In a family close to my own, a crisis unravelled this week. Pickles, an adopted but a much loved stray moggy, came off second best in an exchange with a 4x4 outside the front gate. Urgent veterinary attention was needed. The quote from the vet was £5000. "Eh? How much", I said. The family paid up (don't even begin to fathom that out, unless you're a cat lover). Ultimately, the bill was £3000, but every cricket bat in the house was 'accidently' flung through the nearest window.

By co-incidence, the great “Dastardly Dick” Sibley, unchallenged doyen of the British cattle veterinary profession, was on the subject of paying vets at Dairy UK's farming conference in Worcester this week. His presentation on Johnes Disease was the jewel in the glittering galaxy of star presenters at the conference. So good, infact, that he's going to do it again at our conference at the Dairy Event in September. Dick was stressing the need to pay vets properly for their vital role in the battle against Johnes. To emphasise the veterinary poverty issue, he even wore a jacket that had clearly been bought to attend his final year dance at school. Find yourself some cat lovers Dick, I thought, but of course he's right. He told me afterwards that he'd been fighting the case for higher vets fees for 20 years, ever since I'd put a curse on the profession by writing to the Farmers Weekly to say that the newly formed farm assurance scheme (he and I were two of the original creators) was a blank cheque for vets. I don't remember that, but read on Dick, because I'm going to do it all over again.

Dick's point about Johnes control was that while it could be identified and contained on the farm, there was a real issue with cattle brought on to the farm. An increasing trend, he claimed. This isn't just a Johnes’ issue, it applies to all cattle diseases which are not immediately apparent by a visual inspection. So the obvious solution that jumps out at you is some form of disease certification for all traded cattle: a cattle MOT, as I called it on the day. Since Dick spoke, I've discussed this with a few farming colleagues. It appears that various initiatives have been made, but no-one has really grasped the nettle. A little bit like Johnes Disease before Dairy UK got involved. Maybe we should get involved in this as well?

I'd like to talk more about DairyCo's Milkbench+, and why such an apparently sound margin improving service has such a low uptake, but instead I'm sacrificing their space in favour of Tony Blair and the NFU. The former struck a chord with me on Wednesday when he spoke about the difficulties of becoming competitive in the UK. Look at the struggle to get a third runway at London airport he said. In the next 10 years the Chinese will build 70 new airports without any fuss. I immediately thought Nocton. Competitiveness defeated by the palaver.

So the fact that the Women's Institute this week did not support the resolution against megafarms in the UK was great news for the industry. And congratulations to the NFU for delivering this result. They did the hard yards, attending more than 100 local WI meetings before the National Conference on a campaign aimed at supressing myths. In the end it was worth it and they deserve much credit.

Finally back to Dick. He expressed a desire that in his next life he would like to be a Neospora, because they have a lovely life. Right. I have some advice for him. I'm sure this would be a comfortable existence [and you really do need one!], but I doubt if there's much money in it.

Friday 3rd June 2011

Do you ever get signs from above telling you what direction to take? No? Me neither. But I've come close today. This morning I was sitting on a plane casting my eye over The Derby runners when the pilot announced that his name was 'Gamble'. The name of the cabin manager was 'Presley', he revealed. My eye fell on, 'Memphis Tennessee' available on ante post at 28/1 (Stan James). My money is now on. It has meant betting against the Queen, but you can't ignore the signs can you?

The Dairy UK week has been dominated of course by MRSA. Before the public announcements yesterday the Cambridge University scientist in charge of the project, Dr Mark Holmes, came to the office to explain his findings to our own industry scientists. He wants help with his ongoing research, which of course we are happy to provide. But as well as being an eminent researcher, he is also a passionate advocate of dairy farmers and he articulates their position vociferously. He told us that when he visits dairy farms he is astonished to find a whole range of secondary business activities going on, such as taxi driving and in one case a beauty parlour (not for the cows). Listening to him I was impressed by the innovation of our farmers, but he felt that it should not be necessary for farmers to do other things. In fact he was fully aware that the publication of his results might reflect negatively on dairy farmers, and this was a real concern.

But he had a greater need, and here's the rub. Scientists in the UK like Mark Holmes find it incredibly difficult to source research funds for important issues like this from Government. That is a great pity because we would have all liked to have seen this research at an earlier stage, before it became a debating point in the media. It is perfectly understandable that interest has to be stimulated in a research subject so that projects can be funded and research institutions supported. However, once it becomes a mainstream media issue, there is an inevitability that the research is subject to all kinds of speculation, however well or ill informed. The upshot in this worrying cycle is that industries are hurt before they are helped. Crazy but true, and the result is the kind of dilemma experienced by Mark Holmes this week. How all this has panned out in the media is reflected elsewhere in this newsletter. But for sure, we have to crack this difficult nut.

The Pieman's unforgiving copy deadlines for Dairy UK News mean that I'm writing this in a taxi. I'm late and we're stuck in traffic in the middle of an interminable fras. I comment to the cabby that he must get seriously trachled by traffic jams, but he said “no”. "Why not?", I ask. "Because I'm never going anywhere" he said. Calm down Jimmy. It's only a game.

Friday 27th May 2011

It's 5.30am. I'm gazing over the eerie silence of Loch Fyne in the Scottish Highlands. Only the Kittiwakes and I are up. I haven't seen a kipper, but I'm now increasingly familiar with getting up close and personal with wild life. Earlier this week, I met a snake on a road in Goolagong in New South Wales. It wasn't like the normal snakes I come across. This one was transparent and happy to be identified, but I dealt with it just like the rest. I watched as it came out of one pile of long grass, and slither its way across the road into another. I carried on regardless, but I won't forget it: just another day at the office.

Later today, the pipes will be skirling and the kilts flying as my nephew hurtles round the dance floor with his new bride. Alasdair is an avid football fan. This year, his team came second in the league...again. I wonder if Ruth will try and change him?

My other abiding offbeat memory of New South Wales will be the plushness of the carpet on the Ministerial floor of the Government offices at McQuarie Street in Sydney. As I stepped out of the lift, I almost lost sight of my colleagues due to the thickness of the pile. I contrasted this with the harshness of the environment in the European Commission offices in Brussels. I thought to myself, when they speak there of a 'soft landing', this is what they actually meant. But I didn't have long to reflect. The last plane out of Sydney was almost gone, and I was scheduled to be on it.

Twenty six hours later, I'm walking along the Strand in London heading for a meeting of the Prince's Rural Action Programme where an interesting project aimed at increasing the sustainability of farming is progressing. I am congratulating myself on my decision to choose a Big Mac in Hong Kong in order to avoid the prospect of more Chinese food on the last leg of the journey. I mean, I'm just as partial to Mah Gu Gai Pin as the next man, but you can get too much of a good thing...especially for breakfast. Back at the office I deal with a a series of media inquiries on cloning, sales of raw milk, the publication of the draft Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill, and of course producer contracts. Later, I remove the matchsticks keeping my eyes open, and can find no other excuse for avoiding the Pensions file in the 'to do' pile. Pass me a hot towel. I'm going to be here a while.

Nothing stands still in the dairy world, and I noted this week that a number of our global organisations are undergoing change. The International Dairy Federation (IDF) will doubtless undertake a re-evaluation of their culture when the new CEO moves in next spring. Similarly, I see that the governance of the Global Dairy Platform (GDP) is set for a new course now that its founder and early inspiration Andrew Ferrier is leaving Fonterra. I see also that the International Federation of Agricultural Producers (IFAP) has completely disappeared. I'd completely missed that. When I was the IDF President I had always hoped that these three important organisations, all working to the same end, could come together as branches of a single powerful collective. Now that there are only two, with new people at the helm, I wonder if this would be a good time to make the move. I'm sure that together they'd be more effective than the sum of the parts. At the very least, it would avoid the alternative possibility that they both end up doing the same thing.

Finally, I need to address the problem of my ding-a-ling. I lost it about a month ago. It was strapped to the handlebars of my bike when it was nicked, virtually outside the police station in Richmond on Thames. You would have thought that the residents of Richmond on Thames could afford to pay for their bikes, but apparently not. I've now got a new bike, but it is totally impotent without a ding-a-ling. Did I see an advert somewhere saying that Father's Day was almost upon us? Well, go to it girls. A blue and white one would be champion!

Friday 20th May 2011

It’s 5.30am; me, the galahs and cockatoos are enjoying each other’s company. We’re all watching the possum which I saw last night and is still sitting in front of me. It’s fascinating. I haven’t seen a living possum since the last meeting of the old MMB pricing committee.

I’m plucking up courage to eat the vegemite and toast which has been prepared for me. If it’s no good I can give it to the possum. I soon discover that eating vegemite is a bit like eating Stornaway black pudding. It simply has to be experienced to be appreciated, the possum can go hungry.

Reflecting over the last few days there have been some funny moments. I was being interviewed by a TV news presenter along with a farmer. She asked the farmer if he was losing sleep over the issue being discussed. “Well”, he said, “When you get up at 3.30am every morning there isn’t much opportunity to lose sleep” and
Adrian, who has driven me around what seems like every road in Queensland and New South Wales keeps getting lost. I ask him why he doesn’t put on the sat nav: “I can’t find it in the car”, he says.

It’s been gruelling and utterly exhausting here. 10 presentations in four days from Brisbane down to the South of Nowra and back up to Goolagong, where I am now. The meetings have taken place everywhere from RFLs to open meetings in fields on farms where the audience is much better acclimatised to the flies than me.It’s the meetings on farms I like best because they are usually accompanied by a sausage sizzle and as my Aussie mates keep telling me, there’s no event in the world that cannot be improved by a sausage sizzle.

The politics of it all are intense, much more so than in the UK. Squabbling and finger pointing can stifle creativity I feel. But if you can see through all of this, it’s the position of the working farmer that has to be fully appreciated. I’ve never known or witnessed such consternation as has been caused by the decision of one of the country’s two supermarkets to savagely cut the retail price of fresh milk nearly four months ago.

A sizeable chunk of the Australian fresh milk market is branded and value added own label, earning the farmers premiums. The supermarket has levelled out the retail prices of own label value added as well. The other big retailer was forced to follow suit. The consequence has been a political uproar and a Senate inquiry. Although these actions haven’t fully hit milk prices yet, the dairy farmers are devastated, feeling lost. Many of them have invested huge sums of money in their farms. I’ve seen all this. Their contracts are up for renewal soon. You can feel the angst caused by the uncertainty. The problem is that in many parts of Australia – the parts where it’s most expensive – the fresh liquid milk market is the only game in town. The normal market rules which give farmers protection through having an alternative use for the milk do not apply. The nearest dairy product manufacturing plant for many is more than 800 km away, so effectively the retailer has become the social conscience of farm profitability.

The Senate inquiry report due in April has been delayed until October. Many see this as a negative. I do not. I think it’s a warning to the retailers to reflect on the social consequences of their actions. If they don’t, then the Senate may well bring down the hammer.

I’m off now. My next presentation is in a street called Maison Dieu. Surely with a name like that things will go well there. Fair dos. I hope they do and maybe some divine intervention won’t do any harm.

Friday 13th May 2011

The Pieman came to see me this week. He wanted to have a Friday afternoon off to take his wife away for the weekend to celebrate a milestone birthday. Unfortunately it would mean missing part of a meeting I wanted him to attend in Brussels. Hey ho, I thought. Far be it for me to stand between the Pieman and romance. I asked him, interested, what he had planned. He flustered on about cottages in Devon and canoes on the river and the like, before coming to the point. The weekend would include taking his wife to the Amlin Challenge Cup final at Cardiff City Stadium! This was a tough decision for me, and I felt it necessary to consult the boss. Would she like to be taken to the Amlin Challenge Cup final on a romantic weekend? “Well, you took me to see Plymouth Argyle on our honeymoon”, she said. Hmm. What could I say to the Pieman, other than ”if you need tickets, I’ve got a few sources.”

The sparkling new Dairy UK teleconferencing facility is now up and running. The investment will I trust benefit our members who can now save time and avoid hefty transport costs. I now desperately make a plea to our colleagues in the European Dairy Association to make a similar investment so that Dairy UK and their other members can also enjoy these efficiencies.

The first beneficiary of our new system was, curiously, me! I had drifted down to the southern hemisphere for a few days. I am here to work with the Australian industry for a little while on a problem area which they believe had its origins in the UK, but more of that next week. It’s been an informative trip so far. I was delighted to see that in Australia they are now extensively using our Dairy Roadmap and carbon footprinting guidance. I was pleased about that because it makes me feel much less guilty that at Dairy UK we are now extensively using Australian performance assessment systems, crisis management protocols and have access to various technical and nutrition extranet facilities. I really am a great supporter of free trade in the modern world!

Another pleasant surprise for me is the Australian fortitude in the face of adversity. Farmers here, like farmers everywhere, have real issues with supply chain margin distribution. But despite this their representative bodies refuse to present a meltdown scenario as a PR strategy.  “Puts off young kids coming in, cobber” they say. Interesting take. I think they’re right.

Finally, I must apologise to the Cathay Pacific air stewardess on my flight out of Hong Kong. I inadvertently mistook the name of the sponsoring chef for the actual dish that I was being offered for lunch, but I can thoroughly recommend a bowl of Mr Chin Lee Fang (Kowloon), with jasmine rice of course!

Friday 6th May 2011

The blog goes global this week with stories from as far away as Norway, Westminster, and Inverness. Yes, we know it’s a long way to Tipperary, but not as far, seemingly, as it is to Inverness, where this week everyone’s favourite chocolate became Terry’s All Gold.

But first of all, what do you know about Norway, other than Torre Andre Flo and the Eurovision Song Contest? Well, every schoolkid in Scotland was taught that one of its coasts was called the Skaggerak and not the Kattegat (or is it the other way round?), and that it had a 250,000 kilometre coastline. But that’s about it. However, we were spectacularly privileged to receive some charming guests from Norway at Dairy UK this week, and what a revelation. So would you be surprised to learn that Norway’s dairy industry is approximately one tenth the size of the UK, but generates roughly one third of the wealth? Not only that, but the milk price is around 40 pence per litre providing for farms with an average herd size of 21 cows. One dairy co-operative dominates almost the entire industry. The price includes a significant direct subsidy from the Government. They are very proud of their flagship product Jarlesberg and have built up a substantial export market to the USA, but they can’t earn as much money in the US as they can in their own domestic market, so they get criticized for wasting taxpayers’ money by exporting.

So how do we get to be like Norway? Well the fact is that Norway is possibly the most protected dairy regime in the world. It’s either Norway or Canada, but I believe its Norway by a whisker. And it’s the protectionism that counts. Don’t confuse protectionism with regulation. You can’t achieve the Norway situation with regulation because you are still operating in an unprotected free market, and regulation will stint your growth and render you uncompetitive. So we can’t get to be like Norway. And At the same time it’s unlikely that the Norwegian dairy industry would ever vote to join the EU, even though all their quality and scientific control systems are the same as those which apply in the EU. But at the same time, the Norwegian market has its own disciplines, and I haven’t said anything about input costs. But for sure the most impressive thing about them is their focus on added value products and their understanding of the importance of product research and development. This contributes greatly to their wealth generation. When we had the protection in the UK that the Norwegians have now, perhaps we didn’t understand the importance of AV and product research and development. We do now, and no bad thing.

Any guesses at what the hottest ticket in town this year is? A Royal Wedding invitation? No! A Champion’s League final ticket? No! A ticket for Kilmarnock on May 15 when the lads pick up their third consecutive league title? Eh, no! It’s an invitation to the House of Commons reception on Monday to launch the latest Dairy Roadmap progress report where once again we have great news to sing out to the world. However, our colleagues DairyCo, who have organised the event, have kept a tight rein on the invitation list. So why the coyness? Perhaps its financial and an attempt to create a secondary market. I mean, a Champion’s League ticket is reported in the Daily Telegraph today as being worth more than £7000. Or perhaps it’s to leave plenty of room inside for the rucksacks, because the rucksack is a sign of status amongst the Environmental community. The bigger and heavier the rucksack, the greener you are perceived to be. Of course the venerable Chairman of the Roadmap, the great Mr Tim Bennett, will manage the occasion superbly on the day. I’ve seen him masterfully win over a doubters and sceptics often in the past. But an audience of talking rucksacks? I hope he likes a challenge.

Thursday 28th April 2011

I’ve had to introduce some censorship at the weekly Dairy UK managers’ meeting. From now on no-one is allowed to use the term ‘Calm down, dear’. This is in case anyone offends the Queen Bee. From now on any one who feels that the Queen Bee needs to calm down, must communicate that message using body language only.

I’ve also had to ban the use of acronyms. This is because on Monday, Fergus the Green said ‘I’m going to speak ASAP to AEA & DECC about CRCs, CCAs and the CCL,  then the EA about EU ETS issues following the EDA meeting ‘. The use of abbreviations used to be the preserve of the IT industry. Now, the environmentalists are the worst offenders. A 10,000 word thesis on environmental science can now be written in about three paragraphs. Later in the week, Fergus took as to a pub to celebrate the Royal Wedding. He asked the barman for 2P of L, 2G and T, and 2P of C and OC. Bless him. He more than any of us would be perfect for a Life on Mars.

Dairy UK is of course gripped by wedding fever. The Pieman and Ed not the Eagle can’t wait to see what the dress is like, and Westminster resident Malthusian Pete has enjoyed his nightly banter with the security services as he tries to access the street where he lives. No, at first glance, you can understand why they’ve questioned him so intently, but then the same could be said of any of us here, I suppose. As we swept across London yesterday, through the swathes of Americans, on our way to the House of Commons to give evidence to the Select Committee, I was stunned by the high rise bank of television studios which has been erected outside the Palace. I couldn’t quite see the TV crew from Scottish Television, but I suppose their focus will be on the street parties in Glasgow.

But what of dairy representation at this great occasion? Well, my invitation is still in the post, so I’ll be celebrating privately. And so far I’m not aware of anyone on my Blackberry address list who is attending. However I know that the dairy industry representation will be led from the very front row. William’s father Prince Charles is closely associated with the family dairy farm in Windsor and is, of course, known for taking a keen interest in a number of projects in the industry. So once again, on a day of great national importance, the dairy industry is right at the centre of events.

The Select Committee hearing on the EU Commission’s dairy package was revealing for two reasons. The first is the degree of commonality in thinking between Dairy UK and the NFU (who preceded us at the hearing). Sure there are some important differences. They think there is systemic failure in the market. We don’t. They favour regulation, we don’t. But apart from that it’s really more or less the same messages presented in a rather different style. Why should it be any different? We both have the same interests, profit along the supply chain and stability in a volatile market.

But more significantly the willingness of the Select Committee to try and help in difficult circumstances on a wide range of issues was palpable. Communication with consumers to develop a greater understanding of the benefits of dairy and the care and attention our farmers exercise when producing milk, support for  British is best, innovation, investment and real collaboration to improve efficiency are all areas where further positive change can be delivered.  They wanted to help anywhere they could. That’s positive and great news for the industry. We can only now expect that these views will be reflected in their report.

Thursday 21st April 2011

Well, Spring is now well and truly sprung and the glorious weather doesn't half lift the spirits. A long standing resident of our garden approached us this week and asked if it would be ok to have the relatives over for Easter. "No problem"' said the boss. "I'll stock up on the stale bread". And there they all were this morning, five little robin redbreasts, eating us out of house and home.

I went to Wembley last Sunday. “Winners are grinners” they say, so I found myself in the Stoke City end of the Champagne Bar. On the menu was "Locally Sourced Scottish Salmon". Eh? I tried some. It was teuch.

It was definitely an 'I was there' day. Along with the other 75,000 attendees, I was privileged to be the first of my generation to see a team get spanked 5 - 0 in an FA Cup Semi-Final. I learned a lot. Leaders usually lead from the front, but not in football. When the chips are down, stirring recoveries are organised and led from the back, preferably by a Scotsman. The losing captain was a fluffy fan dancing striker/diver. Hopeless. Owen, why didn’t you get your boots on and come on in the second half?

In a perverse role reversal, the Queen Bee was at Hampden the day before lecturing 200 Scottish football coaches. I mean no disrespect, of course, but come on! Is the future of Scottish football now in the hands of the Queen Bee? She was telling me about it in the reception at Dairy UK, when by coincidence the great Sir Alex Ferguson came on the TV. I told her to hush because when Sir Alex speaks, the whole world stops to listen. She said “I thought he’d retired now”. I heard a grating noise. It was Jock Stein turning in his grave.

Cheerio, cheerio, cheerio were the last words the despondent Bolton fans heard as they departed Wembley on Sunday, and it’s been a week of cheerios at Dairy UK. First with the retirement of Keith Johnson, our Regional Manager in the North. The Pieman and I dined with him this week and found him as fresh as when I first met him thirty years ago. The same can’t be said of our much, much younger Dairy UK chauffeur, Eddie not the Eagle, who was defeated by the challenge of his sat nav system, such that we managed to pay an M6 toll charge going from Birmingham New Street to Sutton Coldfield! Keith is the giant of knowledge and diplomacy in the dairy industry. Over the years, he’s taught me stacks personally. He’s been a great servant of Dairy UK and we’ll miss his talents hugely.

And we’ll miss Hayley, of course, at the NFU. Yes, Hayley has gone to seed. Eh, sorry, I’ll start that again. Hayley has gone to potatoes, which will be their gain and our loss in the dairy sector. We wish her well in her new role as the NFU’s Chief Horticultural Advisor, where I’m sure the potatoes will be just as hot as the ones she’s been handling in dairy for the last three years. At the same time, we welcome Hayley’s successor Rob Newbery, to the fray.

As they say, we live in interesting times, and next week’s oral evidence sessions from the NFU and Dairy UK to the House of Commons Select Committee Hearings on the Dairy Package, will demonstrate that to the full. I’m looking forward to it immensely. But in the meantime I’m off to find a hill to roll my Easter egg down. It’s not that easy to find hills in Surrey, at least not ones with pubs at the bottom. Happy Easter to all.

Friday 15th April 2011

The Queen Bee fired a verbal “all points” round the Dairy UK office this week. “I desperately need a liquor”, she said.  The Pieman boldly stepped forward with the offer of a nice drop of the fine Armagnac he keeps in his desk for what he calls “medical emergencies”. “No”, she shouted. “I need a licker. A stamp licker. I have to get 30,000 “Milk It” leaflets out tonight, or the EU won’t give me my grant aid”.

The Dairy UK Crisis Management team clicked effortlessly into action. I was appointed chief stamp licker, Fergus the Green went on to stuffing, the Pieman made piles (of leaflets) and the Dairy Council girls operated as courier ants to Postman Pat’s mail van. In good time, EU compliance was secured.  Another industry crisis averted.

With our good deed for the day done, I eagerly anticipated the Trehane Trust dinner. This annual event is organised worthily each year by the Pieman at The Chesterfield Hotel in London. The Trust awards travel scholarships to individuals charged with bringing best practice back to the UK. It is based on the sound principle that travel broadens the mind.  Oddly enough, it always seems that the best places to broaden the mind are Australia and New Zealand because that’s where almost all the scholars choose to go.  I’ve been to those places too, but my mind hasn’t been broadened there anything like it’s been broadened in places like Cardiff, Leeds and in particular, the Horseshoe Bar in Glasgow. Indeed, the scholars need have travelled no further than my table for a number of significant mind broadening experiences. These included a discussion on the press report this week from an ex-girlfriend of Prince William to the effect that if she’d hung in there and perhaps become Queen, with maybe her head on the stamps, it would have been nice to have 30 million people licking her face daily. Well, you can’t have this kind of discussion in Australia and New Zealand, but you can at the Chesterfield Hotel on Trehane Trust night.

For the most part the Trehane studies are very helpful. Take the one undertaken by my friend the great Kev the Cumbrian Cowman  For his scholarship, he chose to go to Australia, China and the US to study consumer attitudes to dairy products. I was, in fact, privileged late last year to witness his empirical research work with consumers, which as far as I could see was conducted more or less exclusively in the Wallaby Bar in Sydney. When I saw his conclusions, I began to realise that this was all stuff I’d told him that day while waiting for him to buy a round of drinks! Well, I never got my Toohey’s New. But now, at least I realised he’d listened.

However, the significance and indeed the value of the Cowman’s study, was brought sharply into focus later in the evening as the assembled throng headed off to the bars of the West End to discuss Peter Willes’s excellent guest presentation and Q & A session. The principle issue seemed to be that the consumer concerns which contributed to the scuppering of the UK project were not prevalent pretty much anywhere else round the world. As an industry, we need to understand properly why that’s the case, and the Cowman’s study will help us. There was certainly no shortage of opinion expressed: ‘It’s not real consumers, its NGOs dominating the media’; ‘ we’re using science, the NGOs are using emotion’; ‘we need to educate consumers about modern farming practices’; ‘we have to spend more resource’; ‘individuals alone can’t take on these challenges’. The self analyses went on well into the night (I’m told).

All of this played a part with Nocton, I’m sure, but it’s the next issue we have to focus on now. We can’t afford another double whammy like this, resulting in industry competitiveness being setback and worst of all a man showing confidence in the future of British farming, having his investment funds wasted on a bloody planning application.

Friday 8th April 2011

As we approach Easter, there is a natural inclination to seek out places of comfort and refuge. So it was that last week I headed off to an NFU farmers’ meeting with fellow disciples who included Messrs Potter, Raymond and Handley.

I also went to the Food Standards Agency. Nowadays, that’s nothing short of a pleasure, but it wasn’t always thus. In the FSA’s portalled entry hall, you are reminded that the FSA now shares premises with Ofsted. Ofsted, for those who have forgotten, is the iron fisted inspector of UK educational standards. Their culture is reputed to lie somewhere between UEFA and Guantanamo Bay. Today in the UK media there are extensive reports of a lack of discipline in British schools. How can this happen under Ofsted command I wonder? Over breakfast this morning, I consulted the boss, previously a Deputy Head Teacher at an inner city London school. She tells me that sometimes, Ofsted didn’t always get the full picture. Unruly kids, who, on a regular Monday to Friday basis, would display psychotic and psycopathic tendencies, would suddenly adopt a fierce loyalty to the school on the days of the Ofsted inspection. Visitors expecting bedlam often found an atmosphere more akin to the home of compassion.

The conversion of the FSA from villains to saints coincided with the start of the office share with Ofsted. It also, coincided with the departure of the FSA’s previous Chairwoman, but in a blog you are not constrained by letting the facts get in the way of a good story, so I dismiss that as a possible explanation.

The FSA has, of course, changed. They’ve lost the responsibility for nutrition to the Department of Health and I think they miss the profile which that provided. You may not be a supporter of the DoH’s new responsibility deal, but for sure it’s given them profile. Moreover, without real philosophical political support from the Coalition Government, the FSA are now fighting for their corner in the difficult area where their responsibilities straddle those of Defra. In particular concerning food safety and labelling, and food safety and farm inspections.  The recent episode with the switching of ear tags and TB Reactors, a story which still has some way to run, saw both Defra and the FSA issue statements in a rather than less than joined up manner.  This is a bit of a concern for the industry, because on matters of food safety we must have absolute confidence in our regulators.

Very soon the effective onus of responsibility for hygiene regulation inspections in the dairy sector is going to transfer from the FSA to our farm assurance scheme, the ADF. This has been universally welcomed, including by Dairy UK. It will avoid duplication, it will save money, and it will ease the bureaucracy on farms. But it also places an enormous responsibility on the ADF, and we have to understand that definitively. We can make no sacrifices on food safety, no matter how much bureaucracy is eased by the alternative, so I for one have been less concerned about the time it has taken for the FSA to make this change. And I’m still concerned about the situation in Northern Ireland, where the penetration of Farm Assurance Schemes is much reduced. I feel that different arrangements are necessary for Northern Ireland, and I hope that the authorities there are listening.

There was obviously someone in the audience from Ofsted at the NFU farmers’ meeting. It was calm, logical and constructive, with none of the passion lost or dilution of the important messages being transferred. We even discussed excessive bureaucracy and red tape on farms, a subject on which Messrs Potter, Raymond and Handley are all ,as you would expect, articulate and persuasive. At the meeting it was generally agreed that the report of the great Richard MacDonald, now less than a month away, would deliver handsomely for the farmers on this vexed issue.  Whereas in these sessions I am occasionally and unkindly referred to as “Big Mac”, Richard is always respectfully deigned worthy of the accolade, “Super Mac”. I defer totally to his claim for superiority on this issue; if he delivers for the dairy farmers, he will certainly be worthy of it.

Friday 1st April 2011

I've just had a Linkedin message. Do I know Simon Bates? Of course I flipping well do. I've seen his face in the Wanted posters. It's like when you see an ad in the paper "Have you seen this man? Phone 999. So you phone up. "Nope!". Soon I'm expecting a Linkedin message saying 'do you know Jim Begg'. I'll deny it of course. Time I was Linkedout.

I'm still trying to recover from the biting cold in New York. It was truly perishing. Every day I watched the weather forecast hoping for a change. But I soon learned that TV forecasters in the US aren't employed for their meteorological qualifications. Indeed, once they've said 'good morning', they've already told you more than they actually know. On the worst of the days I got up in the middle of the night to find a bar to watch the Scotland v Brazil game. I trudged all round to no avail. I got back to find my daughter (who annoyingly insisted that while in America she was to be called CAS, which stands for Cool As, Stateside) sitting up in bed watching the Scotland game in her hotel room. 'They were losing, so I didn't phone you', she said. 'Thanks', I replied, thinking it’s not too late to change the will.

There's going to be a lot more rammies like we've seen this week in Brussels when the European Parliament and the EU Council fell out over cloning. The fact is that the European Parliament now has huge power and it’s clearly going to exploit it. Who would bet against the next flare up being on the Dairy Package dealing with contracts and Producer Organisations? A repeat of this week's events could see that whole piece of work pushed deep into the long grass.

The reason for the fall out between the two co-decision partners was fairly clear. One took the consumer view. The other, driven by the science, took an evidence based view. I think, as we go forward, we're going to see this divide repeated many times, and it’s worthwhile reflecting on which view is likely to prevail. Unfortunately, consumer opinion and the evidence aren’t always compatible bedfellows and the FSA and Defra, both sound pragmatists, must be reflecting on that in the wake of the Brussels debacle. On this occasion Defra were a bit unlucky on being fingered as the culprits for the breakdown. They were only, after all, trying to bring the UK into line with practice on the continent.

However, I've had conversations this week with politicians, consumers (viz the boss) and officials. And undoubtedly it’s really tough when consumer opinion doesn’t co-incide with what the industry believes to be sound science. But we’ve been in this situation regularly before, and the message is always the same. Consumers are subject to many conflicting messages. If we want to take evidence based approaches to difficult issues like cloning, then the consumers must understand the science on which our approach is based. Consumer education is the key. And it’s our responsibility to turn it.

Friday 25th March 2011

A taxing week for sure, eh? I was at a prestigious dinner. Next to me on my right was a fellow student of our national game but he was morose and dejected after events at Hampden last weekend. I noticed the excitement in his eyes as he gazed enviously at the finery of silverware on the table. Yes, silverware is great. In fact you just can’t get enough. I looked at him anxiously. No, don’t do it my friend, your time will surely come. After all, it’s only been 784 silverwareless days. Fortunately he had relaxed. The moment had passed. Phew! I made a mental note to buy him an old Mother Hubbard trophy cabinet for Christmas. He liked that as he reminded me he could put the one trophy he had before anyone else in Britain in it. He’ll be fine.

Page 28: always, always start with page 28. At Dairy UK we learnt that lesson on Wednesday – Budget day.  We were all tuned in to the Chancellor’s speech waiting tensely for an announcement on the future of the Climate Change Levy (CCL) Scheme. Would the Chancellor take away the food industry’s discount? We waited through income tax, corporation tax, being open for business etc etc. A cheer went up in the office when the cut in fuel duty was announced. Dairy UK’s letter to the Chancellor clearly brought home the bacon on that one, but eventually nothing at all on the CCL.  Well, no news is good news we thought. Had the collective lobbying effort by the whole food industry and masterminded by Malthusian Pete and Fergus the Green from Dairy UK borne fruit?

We started to read the Treasury back up papers and then we found it. The CCL schemes would continue, but with “simplification”. Right, we can live with that. We can start to develop a strategy. And then at about 4pm, the man from the maltsters, one of our lobby gang, sent round an email. “Have you looked at page 28?” he said.  Eh no, but we soon did and there it was. There will be a consultation on simplification but “all 54 CCL schemes will continue to be eligible for discount”. Bingo!...well at least for the time being. Had we got bad news instead, the cost to the dairy industry would have been around 13 million pounds. Fortunately, now, there is still everything to play for.

I'm writing this in the "Big Apple", in the Marriot Hotel in Times Square in fact. I've just come through a phalanx of 'merchandisers' trying to sell me theatre tickets. One guy asked if I wanted to see a great comedy show. I said "no, I'm a Rangers supporter, I can see one every week". It’s snowing. They are putting salt on the roads. I’m reminded of the CASH (Consensus Action on Salt and Health) hooley at the House of Commons this week. The CASH strategy is to name and shame and this year their target was Wetherspoons. What a pity. I like Wetherspoons. I would miss them if they weren’t there. I’m not sure I would necessarily miss a CASHless society.

Friday 18th March 2011

Fergus the Green is widely recognised as Dairy UK’s own dedicated follower of fashion. I mean come on. How can a man who wears Elvis shoes with wooden soles not be a real cool dude? Anyway, he’s clearly highly influential in shaping the sartorial culture of the organisation, and he’s been trying to persuade us to dress up in boiler suits and go paintballing for the Dairy UK summer outing. He says that being hit by a paintball is roughly similar to being rapped by a wooden spoon. Hmm! Now there’s not much you can teach a Scotsman about wooden spoons. We’ve got hoards of them. I’m expecting to pick up another one at Murrayfield tomorrow. But I’ve always regarded them as tokens of failure rather than instruments of pleasure. I’m just so out of touch these days!

Hot air exuded plentifully at Stoneleigh Park this week. Not from the Defra “consultative” meeting to decide whether the AHDB should in future be a private or a public body, but from the adjacent field in which there was a bouncy castle trade fair in progress. There was much conjecture over whether this vast inflatable city was in fact the new AHDB headquarters, although Farm Minister Jim Paice scotched this rumour in his opening remarks. Some dissident AHDB levy payers were disappointed by this. For a moment they had believed they could have brought the whole organisation down with nothing more than a sharp safety pin.

In reality, the consultation was a non-debate. Moving from a public to a private body would apparently mean buying out the pension schemes, and who is going to do that at the moment. So that is the rock on which the ongoing structure of the AHDB is likely to be founded. But it was nevertheless interesting to listen to the arguments, which I would encapsulate as follows. The supporters of the status quo i.e. a statutory levy, say that it’s necessary because farmers wouldn’t fund some of the investments that the AHDB know are necessary for the future, such as research. Put another way, the AHDB know better than the farmers what’s in their best interests. The supporters of a voluntary scheme, which includes Dairy UK, say  funds would be protected by contractual agreements; more flexibility would be introduced by delinking from Government; and expenditure would be more in line with what farmers actually want, thereby strengthening fulfilment of the value for money criteria. The probable outcome is no change, but it’s early days in the thought leadership process.

I’ve been amused this week by a proliferation of emails between our industry marketing gurus as to why this or that celebrity should front up the next stage of the Milk Marketing Forum campaign. All the contributions seem to be prefaced by the phrase “I’m not in the target market, but……” and then implied is…”I’m as cool as Fergus the Green so I know all about what’s going on in the target market”. I’m not in the target market either. I can’t think that I’ve ever been in anyone’s target market, ever, except perhaps for the odd recalcitrant NFU President or two. But I don’t want to feel left out. So I pass all the comments to my daughter Cool As, and she tells me what to feed back to the group. I now feel I’m influential, part of the club. So life’s really cool. Pass me my man bag, I’m off to Edinburgh with my wooden spoon for a fun weekend.

Friday 11th March 2011

At what point do you know for sure whether or not you're going to have a good day? Nanoseconds after you raise your head from the pillow? My daughter Cool As says it's all determined by which ticket gate you go through at Waterloo Station in the morning. If you choose the wrong one, it doesn't matter what you do, it won't make any difference. I'm different, I do The Telegraph crossword on the train in the morning. If I don't fill in a minimum of 50 letters, I don't make any major decisions all day. Not even as important as what to have for lunch. We're clearly a family of fatalists.

But this week, a key decision had to be made, and there was no avoiding it. What to give up for Lent? I swithered indecisively, but eventually made up my mind. So rabbit snaring and bare back bull riding will be my own personal sacrifices this year. And this will allow me to stay on the chocolate and cakes diets that seem to work so well for the ladies of The Dairy Council. Carry on, ladies. My favourite is the almond slice!

The Dairy UK Board is rightly preoccupied with cost. They demand and expect efficiencies, and I have to deliver. It's the same in any business, and it's also the same in Governments. The current round of spending cuts are a testament to that. What is more difficult to manage is where cost is not eliminated, merely transferred to somebody else. Last week in N. Ireland, I was party to a debate in which the transfer of costs from Government to industry on a particular issue could lead to an increase in the actual costs by more than double. That to me is just plain daft.

This week, we've been looking at the Climate Change Levy, and the Government's plans to replace the existing discount scheme with new, as yet undetermined, arrangements. The chances are that the dairy sector, and indeed the whole food industry, may be excluded from future discounts. If that happened the sector would face a significant increase in costs. And yet, under the current arrangements the dairy sector has achieved a sector energy efficiency gain of nearly 30% and is way ahead of its targets. It is palpably delivering on what the legislation is there to do. So why change?  Once again, that just seems plain daft to me. A real false economy. So at Dairy UK, we're working on this issue. Assiduously.

There will be a Tartan Army invasion of London this weekend as the lads come down to collect the Calcutta Cup at Twickenham and take it back to where it rightly belongs. Not, of course, that defeat to this current England squad is any shame. ....unless, that is, Mr Chris Ashton tries to repeat his impersonation of a diving swallow, immediately violating the important principle of winning with dignity. I'm confident that I speak for every non England rugby supporter and many sporting England fans as well, in suggesting that Mr Ashton wears a sporran before he tries a swallow dive on Sunday. He might then be persuaded not to try it again.

Friday 4th March 2011

As you’ve heard me say many times in this column, life is all about timing. So it is then that I noticed in the current issue of the BMI flight magazine two main feature articles. The first was ‘How to make the most out of your first visit to Tripoli’, followed later in the magazine by a piece on ‘Romantic Weekend breaks in Cairo’

Alas, I fear that DairyCo’s Company Strategy and Performance report for 2010 (comparing the market performances of the main British dairy companies) published this week also suffers from the inevitable delay between compilation and publication. The analyses are made on fairly historic information, but what can you do? Things take a while to get through the typing pool!

The felony, however, is compounded in this particular case by committing the cardinal sin of taking a point in time and manifesting itself as the big picture.  You simply can’t do that without coming to completely wrong conclusions. You can say, blithely, that one or other part of the supply chain is retaining more than its fair share of the pie, then send your economists off  to find a period of time that suits your argument, or you can take a long term perspective, and see if the story is different. It almost always is. And I think most people are interested in the long term.

The crux of it is in a statement in the DairyCo press release which says ‘ There was a lack of involvement in the commodity markets during 2009/10 with those buyers able to divert milk supplies to commodity markets, not choosing to, perhaps in an attempt to maintain long term relationships with current customers’. “Perhaps”? Absolutely definitely would be my view. And what policy would you advocate?

But I don’t want to be over-critical of this report, not only because the problem really resides in the gloss put on it by the press release, but also because it comes from DairyCo’s excellent Datum department, and they more than most have tried to explain fairly the factors which go on in the marketplace. But there is one more thing before I stop. They identify a problem of market signals being passed down the supply chain, stating that ‘pricing signals to farmers are obscured as buyers do not provide details on the balance of market forces which have created the need for a price change’. Not so in my view. It all happens in the producer groups, a real success story in the British dairy industry. And the bits they leave out are filled in by the datum service themselves, every week. You underestimate your expertise guys.

For a clearer insight, I would recommend that the authors of this report turn to another communication published this week from the excellent milkprices.com. Their analysis of the market heralded the fact that the profile of manufacture in this country had led to a more stable price situation for dairy farmers, albeit still volatile. And they wisely commented that ‘rarely the time line of what is happening right now right this minute holds the solution to problems’.  Yes, Mr Bradley, you couldn’t have said a truer word.

Friday 25th February 2011

Welshie from Defra is out of milk. I mean she’s gone to as yet undetermined pastures new. We took her out to say baa baa. In the restaurant she asked for a lamb and lava bread pie. The waiter, looking sheepish, [Editor’s note: How much more of this can our esteemed readers be expected to take?] said “we don’t serve that madam, this is a Chinese restaurant”.  There were lots of tears: Welshie because she’ll obviously miss us, The Queen Bee just because of the mention of the words lava bread, and me, because Welshie said that DairyCo’s Cannon and Ball had wined and dined her so regally such that she couldn’t finish their champagne. Good luck Welshie, and thanks from all of us at Dairy UK.

The indefatigable Cat in the Hat breezed into Dairy UK this week. Instantly, the atmosphere was electrified. You can always hear The Cat before you see her. Her arrival is always spectacular. “I can dance, I can sing, I can do anything” she cries, balancing a cup of coffee on her nose and copies of the last two months’ Cosmopolitan attached to her ear-rings. “Hello, Karen”, I said. “What can we do for you today?” “I’ve come to learn the ways of the world” she announced…………”OK, Karen, you’ve come to the right place”!

Momentarily, I wondered if this was a job for the Pieman. After all, delegation is a powerful management tool. But a true leader knows just when he has to step up to the plate himself. I rolled my sleeves up, and started the preparation. I mosied round to our Liquid Assets Department in the back office. I found the Pieman there counting the beans. “How much is left in our hospitality account,” I asked. “Nothing”, he said. “Welshie cleaned us out”. What about “Education, Training and Skills”? “Same”, he said. “We’ve spent a lot of time educating people this year. All we’ve got is a bag of rose petal flavoured rice that the Japanese government delegation gave you this week for telling them to forget about deregulating their milk marketing boards”. “That’ll have to do”, I said, “she’ll appreciate the fact that they’re recycled”

The Cat and Fergus the Green are, of course, respectively the queen and king of the dairy industry Roadmap. And who would dispute that this is one of the finest collective pieces of work by any agricultural sector anywhere in the world. It has been, of course, under the microscope by the world’s dairy industries, anxious to replicate it. It is also promoted by government as the template for other agricultural sectors in the UK to follow. It’s successful because there is a triple whammy of benefits. It shows that the industry is not in denial about its environmental obligations, it reduces media pressure and it forces meaningful change. And, finally, meaningful change increasingly means more profit.

But while the rest of the world catches up, it’s now time for us to move on. The Roadmap’s success provides a perfect opportunity for us to use it as the vehicle for bigger and wider environmental projects, including the new climate change management arrangements which the Government will bring in this year. We don’t yet know what these will be, but it’s important that when we do, the Roadmap is robust and truly fit for purpose in a bigger role. So when the Roadmap Committee meets in London next week there will be two things to do. One is to celebrate the second year’s results, because there’s another good story of achievement to tell. The second is to look at it, in terms of its appropriateness for the long term, and a wider more all embracing role.

The Cat was heading off to Defra. Before she left I asked her if she had enjoyed her visit. She said Dairy UK reminds her of the label on a packet of Jammie Dodgers…….could contain nuts!  “Thank you Karen”, I said. “Do you know the way?”. “No problem”, she replied. “If I get lost, I’ve got a Roadmap”! And off she went, balancing a packet of scented Japanese rice puffs on her head.

Friday 18th February 2011

The price of love came sharply into focus on Monday as the nation opened its Valentine cards. My own personal investment this year was a mighty £3.09. I know this to be very close to the Scottish male average, because Valentine’s day always seems to coincide with my weekends away with Scottish males attending Six Nations rugby matches. Inevitably, we determine Valentine’s day policy collectively. The cards are always full of vivid colourful imagery, because a picture is worth a thousand words and my rugby friends are doers not talkers. Indeed, I observe in our duty calls home on these weekends that the average Scottish male can communicate very effectively with his partner on a maximum vocabulary of four words…Aye, No, Fine, and Right. Yes, action not words is our motto. It’s just a pity that this attitude hasn’t quite transferred over to our rugby team yet. It was bad enough getting humped by the Welsh. It was even worse getting humped in the £60 seats.

It’s not about the money, sang new pop angel (and surely a potential Make Mine Milk candidate?) Jessie J at The Brits this week. If she’d sung that instead at the NFU Conference in Birmingham, she’d have been drummed out of the brownies. There were some highs at the conference. For example, I found a £1 coin on my seat at the dinner. Then a really nice desk clerk gave me a free car park ticket. There were also some laughs. Caroline Spelman, later in the week forced to apologise to the House of Commons on forestry policy, rehearsed her lines by saying the Government had chosen the NFU’s own Richard MacDonald to chair the regulation task force instead of an academic (we know what you meant, Caroline). Or HSBC Chief Economist Denis Turner saying there were three kinds of economists - those who can add up, and those who can’t.

There were also some opportunities, such as moving forward the debate on milk constructively and positively. Regrettably, at the time of greatest need, we contrived to throw these away. The standing room only session on dairy became a destructive blamefest. No-one doubts the severity of the margin position on many dairy farms. However, having accepted and recognised that, we have a responsibility to try and discuss solutions. I’m also confident that on all the difficult issues - contracts, producer organisations, exports, production systems - there are common sense ways forward, albeit requiring detailed dialogue. But mayhem is not a recipe for progress. Far less, why would anyone think that calling someone names is an incentive for getting them to lift a finger to help you? It only provides manna for the piranhas, and doubtless, their version of events is now being crafted devilishly elsewhere. An opportunity lost, I feel. Until the next time.

On Thursday evening I joined my family to celebrate the boss’s em….tieth birthday in a lively London restaurant/night club. Lateish, we found ourselves lustily singing the old Proclaimers song ‘Letter from America’ with one of my offspring ‘Cool As’ leading the way from the table top. It was one of our ‘car songs’ when the kids were young and it’s about the closure of traditional Scottish industries forcing the workforce to emigrate. Given the news of the previous day, I decided to change the words to “Lochaber, no more; Sutherland, no more; Lewis, no more; Nocton, no more”.  Somehow it seemed appropriate. What a great, great pity. Notwithstanding the public antipathy or otherwise for large scale farms, we can’t afford as an industry for pioneering ventures like this on farms to fail. And we can’t allow individuals to bear the full cost of initiatives which ultimately could benefit all of us. My family sang out the new words with gusto. I only hope that our future pioneers and risk takers don’t end up sending home…. Letters from America.

Finally, my quote of the week: it’s from Italian footballer and ex-Ranger Gennaro Gatusso, when asked what big Joe Jordan had said to him in Milan, to provoke the head butt. “We were talking in Scottish”, he said. “No-one else would understand!” That says it all.

Friday 11th February 2011

Every week has its ups and downs, its highs and its lows, its laughter and its tears. And there's always a point when trust battles with treachery for the domination of the thoughts in your head. It’s now mid-day on Friday and all I can say is that by the law of averages, my afternoon is going to be wonderfully positive. Indeed at one point this week, in an arena that I would least have expected it, I was moved to recall an incident some years back when I was one of a team negotiating milk prices for the MMB. A guy on the other side of the table, from the processors’ team, said "Tell me Jim, when you go home at night what do you tell your children that you do?" My clever dick answer was "I tell them about all the difficult and awkward people I have to deal with during the day." He smiled, and replied "Yes, I can see what you mean. But what do you tell them about us?"

But in the darkest hours, anti-heros are born, later to mutate into the nemesis of the short sighted. In this capacity, step forward the spur throated locust nymph. The spur throated locust nymph is found in Australia, and is a bigger lustier hungrier version of the standard version; a sort of Kenny Millar evolution of Fernando Torres if you like, and it’s currently eating its way through the entirety of the Australian arable crop, impacting arable and dairy farmers alike. This, coupled with the floods, fires, cyclones, and various other plagues has created very testing times for dairymen. Then, right in the middle of it all, the major supermarket chain Coles cut the retail price of own label liquid milk by a third. Yes a third. Immediately their rival Woolworths followed suit saying “we have to be competitive. That doesn’t mean we agree with it”. Woolworths then tried to pacify things by offering Queensland farmers a derisory 5 cents per litre supplement to pay for the damage caused by our aforementioned hero, the spur throated locust nymph, and all the rest. A bitter sweet pill indeed, and of course much too late. The supermarkets now face a Senate inquiry, a possible competition law inquiry, and potentially an EGM of the company which owns Coles called by shareholders who want answers. I wonder if they could’ve seen this coming. I mean sometimes you just wish you’d gone to Specsavers. If there is a moral to this story, I leave it to others to interpret. Doubtless you’ll let me know.

I’m looking forward to the NFU conference next week where I’m scheduled to play a bit part at the dairy breakout. I’ve declined the special ‘conference rate’ of £200 for a night in one of the Hilton Hotel isolation cells (Dairy UK rate for the same frugal facility at the coming Dairy Event in September is £99). I’m not averse to sleeping in the car park, but only if I can find a resident to sub me with a £5 resident’s voucher.

I’m also looking forward to hearing Dairy Co’s Amanda “Crystal” Ball tell the marketing world how to educate the general public on large scale farming. Yip, Crystal, we all need to know the answer to that. But if she’s looking to supplement her London lecture, she may wish to share with us the link between her recent trip to Cairo, and the ensuing civil riots which started the day she left. Yes, life’s all about timing.

Finally, a strong candidate for quote of the week comes from Ireland regarding an announcement which said “Because of the cuts, we can no longer afford the light at the end of the tunnel”. But the winner was a friend of mine who recently attended a Joe Cocker concert and thought Joe looked just the same as in the old days. Reflecting on an explanation, he commented “He’s like you, Jim. He looked old when he was young”

Friday 4th February 2011

Things were tense on Monday, transfer deadline day. On this day every manager in the country sits and waits for the transfer requests to arrive. Fortunately no-one knocked on my door. Nevertheless I was reflective when a deal to loan me to the NFU till the end of the season fell through at the last minute. Personal terms were not an issue, but they felt that the loan fee of a bag of toffees was too high for a deal to be struck. Phew. That was a close one for everyone!

I've had a ferociously busy week and I suppose middlingly successful, but somehow I feel it’s been wretched. Do you ever feel like that? Anyway, if you're looking for sparkling wit and repartee in this week's column, turn away now. At any rate, the pint of Guinness now sitting in front of me is some consolation. But only because it’s sitting on a bar top in Paris where I am avec mes bons amis. It’s blowin’ a hoolie outside, so I expect I'll be here for a while. The bar is called “L’homme Gai” which I broadly translate as “The Happy Chappy”. Irony personified or what?

I know what’s really perturbing me, but I’m less sure about what’s accentuating it. I think it’s that I’ve spent a lot of time this week either meeting or addressing the most important organisations who influence the future of the dairy sector, and they blithely admit that they struggle to understand the machinations of the dairy industry. I include in this the parliaments in both London and Brussels. There is no shortage of goodwill or good intent, just, sometimes, blind miscomprehension about how things work. This is serious because if they don’t understand it, they can’t fix or improve it. Indeed the question most asked by the legislators of Dairy UK is what are the unintended consequences of what we’re about to do? Dairy UK’s crusade to change this situation goes on. It is a formidable challenge.

I do not include in my catalogue of knowledge free institutions, the fine gentlefolk of the Board of the RABDF, whom I addressed this week. They showed respect, understanding and perceptiveness in their questions, many of which were about farm input costs. I had intended to use as an example of profligacy the fact that the sandwich lunch had include the biggest bowl of potato crisps I’d ever seen. Was this unnecessary cost for the British milk producer? Indeed not. Soon after, the uneaten crisps were put back into the jumbo sized packets doubtless for later consumption elsewhere. I was impressed. A small victory for future competitiveness I thought. Every little helps.

I've got some things wrong this week. I must apologise to young Derek Kennedy, Trojan defender of Assured Dairy Foods, for calling him Duncan all the way through the ADF Board meeting this week. It's an age thing, Derek. One day you'll find out. But I do want to make one thing clear. Make no mistake, it was Derek who almost single handedly and with dogged persistence persuaded the FSA to integrate the FSA and dairy farm assurance inspection schemes, saving farmers pot loads of money. So if our dairy farmers are grateful for this, then it’s Derek they have to thank, much more than those with vast PR resources who ungenerously neglected to recognise this in their media communications.

As I look around the bar at my fellow countrymen, it is indeed like an episode of 'Men Behaving Badly'. Each of them is preparing in their own way for the triumph or disaster which will befall us tomorrow. Either way we will find something to celebrate.  Again, I find confirmation that it takes no more than for a Scotsman to simply walk through a building to instantly improve it. Yes, Kenny for England is what they're saying in these parts. And who would bet against it? A prochaine.

Friday 28th January 2011

A bad week for Scottish lotharios then. Both Tommy Sheridan and Andy Gray falling victim to the rules of engagement with the opposite sex. And all this coming in the week when we celebrated the birth of Robert Burns. Poor Andy. Dark forces aside, I can tell you that no-one in Scotland understands the offside rule. I played football there for 25 years, and offside was something you automatically claimed as soon as your opponents moved into your half. I always thought that that was what the offside rule was. The referee’s actual decision was based on how convincing you could make your scream.

Keen for a greater insight on Tommy Sheridan, I tuned in to the BBC Scotland news. However, it was another item which intrigued me. It seems that someone tried to pinch the Forth Road bridge to sell off as scrap metal. A police inspector was being interviewed. She looked trachled, as though someone had nailed her to the floor. Then I understood as she smiled and said “Mention the word ‘copper’ to these guys, and they’ll be off with you as soon as you like”.

I had dinner in London this week with Cindy Schweitzer, ace nutritionist from the Global Dairy Platform in Chicago. We went to Navajo Joe’s in Covent Garden which was fine since I’m partial to a good Indian. The restaurant was overcrowded when we arrived, but Cindy got us right to the front of the queue by giving her name as General Custer. Not a bad strategy in a restaurant called Navajo Joe’s, I thought. There are no dairy products in the diet of the American Indian. However, Cindy tried to convince me, as she always does, that eating dairy is good for my heart and will help me lose weight. Of course, I was persuaded. Another dollop of cream on my apple pie please, waiter!

I then tried to persuade her that we may have to take a different approach to communicating the health and well being characteristics of our products in future. We had both been at a conference and had spent hours debating the necessity or otherwise of health claims, and the virtues of dairy versus soya and the like. We had both understood the reality that it could be 2013 before we got the science rewritten at huge cost and the health claims bureaucracy gone through before we could meaningfully use claims to prove the goodness of dairy to consumers. At the same time, earlier in the day, at no cost, I had watched a little angelically faced member of a boy band called The Wanted tell the nation that soy “milk” tasted like wallpaper paste: instant, effective, mass communication.

Last year in an Australian supermarket, I had scanned the shelves of yogurt and discovered that in almost all the brands, the term ‘yogurt’ did not actually appear on the packaging. Instead terms like ‘Smart’ and ‘Glow’ were used. The claims on the pots weren’t about yogurt, they were about ingredients, set in the context of the consumer’s lifestyle. So, from the consumer’s point of view, what was inside the pots wasn’t necessarily yogurt, it was something to eat which had healthy things in it and was made to be in sync with their lifestyles and beliefs.

Would it be possible to transfer the same context to milk or cheese, I wonder? Don’t use these terms.  Promote them on lifestyle. Make claims about the ingredients and not the products (most of which have passed EFSA scrutiny).   Could the product description of milk become a thing of the past?

Cindy looked pensively into her black coffee. She asked me to pass the jug of “White Dream” blend of calcium, protein, potassium, phosphorous, Vitamin B12 and Vitamin B2, and then she asked about the doctors, the health professionals, the academics who advise governments, and all the other people who advise consumers and who make our products essential foods for children from birth. And of course she’s absolutely right. The battle for scientific validity must go on. But suddenly, thrust upon us by the bureaucracy of our validation processes, there is something for the world’s Dairy Councils to think about. Somewhere there’s a balance, and unlike Andy, we have to get it right.

Friday 21st January 2011

We’re walking on eggshells at Dairy UK this week while we all work out our new personalities. As you will know, the gravitational pull of the moon has made shifts in the Earth’s axis resulting in shifts of astrological signs, along with introduction of a new 13th one called the Imhotep.  At Dairy UK, the Pieman has welcomed this. For a long time he’s felt that he’s been on a different planet. Now, he’s looking forward to meeting some new friends.

But I have bad news for him. Alone in the office, his status is unchanged. A Leo he was, and a Leo he remains. Worse, he has a new rival for king of the jungle. Me! I used to be a fluffy pussy cat of a Virgoan. Now, as a Leo, I’m still a pussy cat, but with a much bigger mouth! Is it possible, you might ask? Fergus the Green has switched from a loyal Cancerian to a versatile Gemini, and the bullish Malthusian Pete was a Taurian and is now spam, according to his computer.  As a Saggitarian, The Queen Bee’s sharpness came from the points of her arrows. Now, as a Scorpian, her sting is in the tail. Either way, she’s still flighty.

We’ve been helping Defra this week work out how much milk was lost to the pre-Christmas snow. We reckoned that it was less than 0.2% of production in December, which I think reflects a magnificent effort. So magnificent, that Defra couldn’t match it at the Dairy Supply Chain Forum meeting this week. I could see no snow, and the meeting was in a warm office, but still the coffee failed to make it through. This is a serious issue for the Defra apparatchiks because they’re only allowed coffee when there are visitors. The missing coffee visibly affected their attitude. For a while, Welshie and Tommy behaved like two bald men fighting over a comb. The Minister politely declined my suggestion of whisky as a substitute, which I felt was justified on market failure criteria. Eventually, order was restored once the coffee arrived and the meeting flowed effortlessly. The farm minister Jim Paice continues to impress. As recommended, most of those attending had taken a substantive dose of constructive pills and at the end the Minister said he welcomed the positive outlook for the future. But he added that this shouldn’t hide some deep felt concerns about the present. No-one missed this message. Good meeting. More good stuff to come from this area.

For a bluenose, my week has had a disproportionately green focus. This will continue next Thursday when Dairy UK is flying-in a host of global environment and nutrition experts from the USA, Sweden and France. They will join local supremos including the Queen Bee and Karen ‘Cat-in-the- Hat-I-Can-Do-Anything’ Wannacott at a Dairy UK conference which will lay the dairy industry’s sustainability and nutrition credentials open for public scrutiny. All the NGOs will be there, with the WWF as main speakers. My hope is that after this we will be a step further towards establishing a platform of co-operation similar to that which the WWF has with the US dairy industry. We’ll see how it goes. We need to do this. Come along. It’s sold out, but I can always be bought!

It’s Burn’s day next week so romance will be in the air. Fergus the “Green Grow the Rashes O’’ will manage Dairy UK’s Burns  week activities, an honour he won in open competition with the following offering  - A man walked up to the inquiry desk in a library, and said “Robert Burns: The Complete Works” The assistant replied “I’m sorry Mr Burns, but the massage parlour is next door”. In the words of the great man himself, “whit a blather”.

Friday 14th January 2011

The boss has gone off again for a couple of weeks, forcing me into buying 14 new shirts. It’s either that or learn how to work the washing machine. But somehow, I’ve always had an instinct to keep away from things I know I’m not good at.

I needed a clean shirt for my breakfast appointment at the posh Caledonian Club in London, this week.  I don’t know if Scotland has an upper class elite, but if it does, then this is its London headquarters. As you walk up to its foreboding portals, you feel you should be taking out your sword, rapping the door, and declaring loudly, “Make way for Mac Duff of Stronachlacher, Lord of the Highlands and Chief of the Clan Praesidium”. I was being joined there by Malthusian Pete and the Pieman and I’d warned them both to be on their best behaviour. However, the Pieman went overboard. He was wearing, what in Scotland we affectionately term an “Arthur Montford” jacket. You know, the kind of jacket that you can take off, spread out on the ground and play a game of outdoor chess on. The waiter in the austere hush-hush dining room, mistook him for a pheasant and tried to wrestle him into the kitchen. For a while there was an unseemly stooshie.

Of course the sartorial standards expected at the club could be found in the picture on the wall of one of its high-ranking officials. He was wearing a shiny business suit. As I looked at this, I mused how things had changed. Nowadays, you can buy shiny suits off the peg. In my day, they took ten years to develop, starting with the trousers, and then progressively the jacket joined in.

Very quickly after breakfast, our host suggested that we retire to the Library. He said that the contemplative atmosphere there was more conducive to the thought and reflection necessary for the issues we were there to discuss.  In reality, he was worried that any swearing in the dining room could affect his membership. And the Library is indeed impressive, full of works of history, art, science and literature. Strangely, the books are kind of caged behind locked defences. The Pieman, still obviously scunnered, said that this was to prevent anyone from Scotland getting near to any knowledge! I was impelled to ask him haughtily if he felt under pressure.”No”, he said. “Why”? “Because I can’t understand how anyone can wear a jacket like that and not feel under pressure”, was my reply.

We were planning ahead and reflecting on what the New Year would deliver for us.  Thankfully, I feel that the pre-Christmas hiatus in the industry has calmed down. Perhaps this is because everyone is still wabbit from the ongoing lurgy that is laying everyone low. Not that the market place issues have gone away, or are any less relevant, but for the last six weeks or so while everyone else has been revelling, we’ve been analysing and explaining to people how the dairy markets in the UK work.  Believe me, we are not short of people willing to listen to what we have to say, because for some reason the workings of our marketplace seem to vex most external observers. Sure, the market developments in the sector are not perfect, but they are rational and that’s what counts in the UK.  The lags, the relativity in the hierarchy of prices, the different values of milk, the impact on income of supply and demand in the industry relative to marketing and product strategy; they all need understanding, and that’s what we  have been doing, slowly and painstakingly. It’s vital that more pennies drop in this area, because it’s important that our future is steered by understanding and not bluster.

Next week, we have the Dairy Supply Chain Forum meeting in London. The agenda is more forward looking than any I’ve known in the past. I expect it to be a positive meeting. Although times are tough, there is not much, indeed anything, wrong with the long term strategies being implemented on the UK’s farms and in its factories. In our series of year end discussions, no-one has challenged that fundamental reality. So, with a bit of goodwill all round we can turn that into positive action points at the Forum. I’m looking forward to it immensely. I’ll probably wear a new shirt.

Finally, I extend the sympathy of the whole British dairy industry to our friends and colleagues in Australia, and particularly in Queensland. My mate Tim Burfitt has been sending through some astounding photographs of the difficulties in the countryside around Brisbane. They are humbling and shocking. I’ve been trying to contact some friends in Queensland, so far without success. So Ian, I’m sure you have plenty on your mind rather than read this column, but I know you do, so give us a ring. In the meantime, we wish everyone out there every good fortune in seeing this through.

Friday 7th January 2011

I find that the first week of January is the only time in the year when the piles on your desk are in a relative state of organisation. There’s the ‘Urgent decisions needed on issues going back as far as three years’ pile. There’s the ‘Interesting, but won’t push back the frontiers of science’ pile. And of course the biggest of them all, the ‘Pending and Never’ pile. My objective is always to eliminate them all in a single day, but after one day back in the office I’m losing the battle.

Yesterday (Thursday), we had face to face meetings with Defra and Assured Food Standards. We prepared agendas and papers for the Dairy UK Board next Friday, for an important meeting with the Minister of State on Monday, and for the forthcoming Dairy Supply Chain Forum. We resolved difficult issues relating to the acquisition of carbon allowances for the Climate Change Scheme. We responded to consultations on the AHDB, and the Select Committee inquiry on Osteoporosis. We launched an international investigation with colleagues around the world on the use of an animal medicine. And we did an extensive paper for one of our members on what Dairy UK does for its money. It is an important business principle of mine that the only thing which should be on your desk after 9.30am is your feet. Yesterday, I failed.

It’s been a shocking start to the New Year for me personally. I went to Barcelona to see Messi play football. He was injured and had to pull out. I like to watch a good horror film over the New Year Break, but this year the one I watched, filmed live on location at Ibrox, was rubbish. But to cap it all, while in Barcelona, an organised gang of sneak thieves successfully managed to separate me from my wallet and a significant amount of cash. It was an operation so slick and efficient that I was denuded of my wealth without feeling a thing. It was like being at an AFS Marketing Committee meeting. But worst of all, in my wallet, in amongst the cash, was my ticket for the Camp Nou.

At times like this, you have to look for the positives. First, the thieves were so expert that in making their escape, they removed the cash (and the ticket) from the wallet and threw the wallet with all my cards etc on the ground. So I got it back, in contrast with all the Russians and Turks that I met later at the police station, who’d had their passports nicked. Secondly, I knew the number of the stolen match ticket. I’d taken a photo of it. Whether the police investigated that I have no idea, but maybe….! The boss, who witnessed all this, has suggested that with our new specialist knowledge, we recoup the funds by setting up a similar operation in Trafalgar Square.  I haven’t ruled that out yet, but I’m going to market test it in the office first, probably starting with the Pieman.

Back in Blighty in a search for New Year inspiration, I’ve been scanning the output from the Oxford Farming Conference. I started with the major policy speech by Food Minister Caroline Spelman. I only got as far as paragraph three where once again she declared her remit as working for farmers, consumers and taxpayers. Right, Caroline. Once again there was nothing in there for a vast segment of my constituency viz food producers and distributors, major employers of people in the British countryside. So, for now, it’s been added to the ‘Interesting etc’ pile on my desk to be read later.

Next, on to the speech from Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Ciolos. He understands his constituency. He gave full details on how important it is, and how important food production is, to the countryside and to the rural economy. Of course his remarks on the CAP of the future were balanced within the overall need to pursue sustainability and the rights and expectations of taxpayers. But the emphasis was on food production, and for me that’s an important distinction. He also took care to point out the ongoing need for intervention backup in the dairy sector as a means of addressing volatility. I think he’s right. I recommend this speech to you. It’s impressive.

On two occasions in the Ciolos speech, I felt he was talking to me personally. At the start, he said ‘If you want good advice, ask an old man. I don’t feel old enough’. Don’t worry, Dacian, I do, enough for both of us. But later, he recalled an old Yiddish proverb – “with money in your pocket, you are wise, you are handsome, and you sing well”. How true, and once, Dacian, I was that man.  But now that the man in Barcelona has done his work, I realise that he deprived me of more than just my money.

Friday 31st December 2010

2010: The Year of Consumer Education?

Well what was it like for you then? No, I mean 2010. Yes, I know you feel a lot older now than at the start of the year, but was it a good year or a bad year? Did you move on? Do you feel you’re winning? However you measure satisfaction, money, status, development, a clearer vision? Have we taken a step forward, and did you play your part? What do you mean you can’t remember? It only happened 5 minutes ago.

Well let me tell you about our year at Dairy UK, and see if that helps. We started and ended the year covered in snow….the White Stuff. Both times, we marvelled at how, despite everything, the milk still gets through. So from the point of view of our core production capability, 2010 was an absolute triumph.

Of course the mark of a good trade association is that you hear nothing about them, and at the same time you have no problems. You just hope that they’re awake, while you’re getting on with things. Fortunately this year, they were. Otherwise the Government might have withdrawn school milk from the under 5s; or the European parliament might have stopped us calling our liquid milk ‘fresh’, prejudicing £3.3billion of our income; or Defra might have brought in Country of Origin arrangements that told consumers all about the product except where it was manufactured; or the FSA might have prosecuted us for not knowing if our milk was cloned when it was impossible to know this in the first place. Governments do change their minds you know if you talk to them. And did we do all this quietly? Of course we did. Not a whisper. You’d hardly know we exist.

And did we do anything new? Well, curiously, a large part of our year was spent trying to persuade people not to hang on to old traditions and practices. It always is. Some battles we lost. We couldn’t persuade Defra to stop using top up money as a price subsidy on school milk and to use the money on promotion instead. We persuaded them initially, but then they changed their minds. Governments do that, we find. Sometimes for good, sometimes not. We couldn’t persuade the European Food Safety Authority to adopt our health claims either, but we did persuade the rest of the EU dairy industry to withdraw them and start again. Sometimes……, actually always, we find that the shortest distance between two points is never a straight line.

Anything else? Well, we brought celebrities back to the dairy industry in England and Wales, and money too, from our pals in the EU Commission. So big names like Pixie Lott, Usher, Jensen and Beth Tweddle and Denise Lewis are advertising our products in two different focused marketing campaigns. Oh, and I forgot about “The Body”. And if you don’t know who she is, you’re the only one. Come round to our office. The biggest picture in the world of her is hanging there.

Is that all? No there’s lots of other new things this year, less glamorous, but just as important for our competitiveness. Like a new training academy at Reaseheath generating our scientists and technologists for the future. The Queen went along to open it and she said it was cool. Oh and lots of new industry codes of practice guideline documents, and surveillance monitoring, all spreading best practice and common approaches to problems. We did lots of them this year on cheese, on carbon footprinting, on sustainability, on crisis management, on contaminants and salt contents. Lots of them, more next year too. We prepared ‘state of the nation’ reports in N. Ireland, with one planned for next year in Scotland. In fact we prepared a lot for next year. CAP Reform, the Commission’s High Level Group on contracts and Producer Organisations - the latter in particular very, very important for the future of the industry, we spent a lot of time and money on that. More than any of our colleagues elsewhere in the EU, I’d guess. I bet they wish now they’d paid more attention at the start. We won’t know for a while about the outcome, but we’re confident, quietly confident. That’s our style.

And did we do all this on our own? No, of course not. Have you ever tried to do a tango on your own? We work with lots of people. Surely that’s the best way isn’t it? We’d do even more if we could, but sometimes silly things get in the way. Take Johne’s disease as a great example of industry co-operation. We just gave a gentle nudge and all sorts of organisations get together. As a result, voluntary initiatives have sprung up this year all over the place. We like to think that this supplements the great work that others are doing on welfare like the NFU and their Cow Welfare Strategy.  When you take all this, plus hopefully a more enlightened Government view on TB, this has been a really good year for the dairy industry on welfare. Co-operation works.

So you’ve been busy then this year? Well never mind the work; it’s hard enough for us trying to remember all the new faces. Tons of them this year, all to a man big cheeses in big positions. There’s the new Minister of State Jim Paice; the new head livestock supremo at Defra Andrew Robinson; new CEOs at both the NFU (Kevin Roberts) and DairyCo (Duncan Pullar) and new Welshman at the head of the NFU’s Dairy Board, Mansel Raymond. Even within the house, we’ve got a new chairman at Dairy UK, Robert Wiseman; Rex Ward as the new chair of our Farmers Forum and we’ve even got a new spin doctor at Dairy UK (Simon Bates). All this in 12 months. Amazing. There’s hardly any space left on the Dairy UK dart board. No women then? Whoops I forgot. The most important of all, right at the top came Caroline Spelman the new Food Minister. But she hasn’t really come out to play yet. All year she’s talked about working for farmers, consumers and taxpayers, and all year I’ve been pointing out that she’s missing out a very big part of the supply chain who are big employers in the UK. She’s due to make a big future policy speech in a few days time at the Oxford Farming Conference. We’ll see if she’s been listening.

So do you get on with them all then? Well the DG’s a bit dodgy with that blog of his. He says that to mention them is a mark of respect. Hmm. We sometimes change it after he’s left the office. He never notices. But of course we engage all the time. We all have the same interest at heart. If we don’t work closely with each of our co-organisations each of us is weaker as a result. Simple really.

So the industry’s had a good year then? Well yes if you consider all the above and if you look at the vital signs. Prices are up, the exit rate fell, and farmer’s confidence was up. That is according to DairyCo (April) and the NFU (October).  Then something depressed a lot of farmers, not by any means all of them, but a lot. Undeniably, rising costs (the ones that farmers good or bad can’t really control) and margin pressures have created a fair measure of uncertainty. For some it’s very tough. It always will be, especially for those farms supplying the commodity sector.

So what about 2011? Are there grounds for optimism? Well what you always have to remember is that our industry is on a rising demand curve, with a slowly increasing dependence on added value products. That’s the right strategy and we shouldn’t be diverted from this in pursuit of false dawns because all that glistens is not gold. So that is a much better position to be in than with falling demand and a good reason for a positive approach.

The real test next year will be our ability to convince consumers that efficient farm production systems are also consumer, animal, environmental and industry friendly systems. Those who want to invest in them, and many won’t, at the very least should have the option of doing so. That’s likely to be one of the big issues of the year and lots of consumer education will be needed.  As will the education of consumers on the nutritional value of our products, because if we neglect that we shall very quickly suffer the consequences. And it’s the same with the way we are approaching the environment. Because of very active NGOs, we’ll have to tell consumers all about that as well. In fact let’s make 2011 the year of the education of the consumer. Let’s make that the driver of everything we do. Ultimately that’s the best chance we have of delivering our highest return.

So, a Happy New Year to all of you, and thanks to everyone who knowingly or unknowingly provided the scripts for this column in 2010. And my message is stay positive. I’ll be starting the New Year in Barcelona on Sunday. Although my thoughts will be elsewhere, I’ll be checking out the local football team we might after all draw them in the 2012 Champion’s League final. Yes, stay positive, I say. You just never know.

Thursday 23rd December 2010

Tis the season to be jolly. Yes? Well, let me quote you from an email I received a few minutes ago from a colleague. “Set off from London office at 4pm yesterday for 6pm flight from City to Glasgow. Got on plane at 8pm. Sat on runway for an hour then they closed the airport. Legged it to Euston for sleeper. It broke down at Beattock.Now limping to Motherwell. Tell me should I buy a ticket for the Euromillions draw this week? Merry bloody Christmas!” And a Merry Christmas to you too mi amigo. And thanks for the bottle of 12 year old Auchentoshan which you sent me for Christmas. We both know that where there’s whisky, there’s no real need for central heating. If I could email it back to you through the ether of the internet to fortify you on your forthcoming walk from Motherwell back to Glasgow, of course I would. In any event, I hope you make it home for the Hogmanay party. In my view, your rendition of “Ten Guitars” has no equal, and don’t listen to anyone who tells you it’ll be even better if you ever learn the words!

But it’s still bloody grim, isn’t it? Miserably, unrelentlessly grim. And that’s me speaking from inside a warm office, (ok, a warm bar). God knows what it’s like at -12 degrees on the farms and in the factories. A farmer friend of mine in generous spirit phoned in to say his pipes were frozen. Could I come over and blow on them because I could generate more hot air than anyone else he knew! Ho, ho, ho, I replied, And what must it have been like if you were at the end of a one and a quarter mile queue for the Eurostar? Knowing, that if you ever got to the front, all you had to look forward to was the Eurostar itself. Alas, those in the queue will by now fully share my view that the difference between the Eurostar, and a swarm of mosquitos is that the mosquitos only irritate you in the summer.

At this time of year everyone who just can’t say no inevitably gets struck with the seasonal lurgy. And it was this more than anything else which forced me to watch the “Panorama” programme last night. I am so glad I did, because a new hero for the British dairy industry has emerged. Looking uncannily like a re-incarnation of John Denver, former British dairy farmer Tony Gillett in 5 seconds scooped the Dairy UK 2010 Communicator of the Year award. An emotional man, already stricken by the loss of his own business, Tony had been flown to the USA to comment on large scale dairy farms. With Nocton as the target, the programme was lining up for a hatchet job. But standing in the huge milking parlour on the US farm Tony declared himself overwhelmed by how happy the cows looked. And that folks is all that the British consumer needs to know. We in the industry know that this is backed up by sound science, and this information is vital. But in terms of getting the message across to the consumers this was a lesson to us all.

Irrespective of what your views are on large scale farming, we cannot as an industry afford to have this potential advantage removed as an option from our armoury of potential competitive advantages, and this depends on getting consumers on our side. That’s why Tony’s contribution, was in my view monumental.

Of course the focus of the programme was really about the burgeoning power of supermarkets, and few would disagree that the programme editors got their point across. Many farmers will be rankled by a perceived injustice, and will be reflecting on tactics. I’m pretty clear on that. Why should the messages we send to each other in our Christmas cards which cement our relationships, be any different from the approach we employ in business? We are all at our least effective when we are angry. The velvet glove will always triumph over the clenched fist.  A very happy Christmas from me, and the whole team at Dairy UK.

Friday 17th December 2010

Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way….. In my view, there is no finer embodiment of Christmas than carols played by a Salvation Army band. Their musical arrangements are special, and this week they were in top form at Waterloo Station. Although not strictly a carol, my own personal favourite is Jingle Bells, a fondness developed in the days when the Old Firm game in Glasgow was played each year on the first of January. [Ed’s note: This comment is for Scottish readers only. He tries, but he just can’t help himself]. This week, I listened, waiting patiently for ‘Jingle Bells’ to come round. Eventually, my time was running out so I offered them two quid for a special request. They agreed, but in austerity ridden Britain, the best they could do was three quid for Jingle Bells, or a Christmas special of four quid for one Jingle Bells plus one Hark the Herald Angels sing with an extra chorus. Not quite BOGOF, I know, but at almost two for the price of one, I snapped up this ‘bargain’. Hey, it’s Christmas.

Music will feature prominently at the Dairy UK/Dairy Council Christmas party later today where the highlight will be our karaoke competition to see who can reach the upper C note in ‘Oh Holy Night’. Move over Katherine Jenkins, I say, as the heavy money pours in for the favourite Fergus the Green. However, my money is going on the Pieman, an outsider at the moment, but I’m taking a long sharp stick with me to encourage him as he makes his way through the octaves. I expect to make a few bob there.

On the business front, I’m getting a touch alarmed at the increasing trend for what in the past would have been considered open consultative meetings with Government to be now informally classified as under ‘Chatham House’ rules. Dairy UK this week attended two such meetings and two the week before. What’s that all about?  I mean, I understand the desire not to restrain free speech, but none of these meetings have exactly been in the ‘Careless Talk Costs Lives’ category. However, I am but a humble servant of the bureaucracy, so my report of the meeting I attended is as follows:  hysnjm ssjimheyg bkoldjensll xxilkso nnkslouiyt nkolpdhek snjdret nklpoium. Please apply to Defra for the key to the code.

I’m pleased to read elsewhere in this newsletter that Defra has put in place meaningful and constructive consultation talks on the CAP. This is important. There is a public consultation by the European Commission with replies due back by Burns Day. I urge everyone interested in the future of commercial food production to respond to it, because if it’s the case (and of course it may not be) that this becomes a battle between a competitive sustainable industry and the provision of public goods, then at the moment the odds are stacked in favour of the latter. The Government sees CAP Reform as a massive opportunity for us to produce the extra food that the rest of the world can’t because of climate change. I desperately hope that they follow this through by prioritising competitiveness in the negotiations. Secure that, and the public goods will surely follow. Do it the other way around, and our industry could head off to Brazil.

Well, I’m off to the party now, the theme of which is, of course, ‘Burlesque’. How could it be anything else, this week in London? So as I write, the girls are in make-up, and the guys are testing out their new SLR triple magnification viewing spectacles, in preparation for the event. Yes, l know the X Factor got it wrong, but can Dairy UK get it right?  It might all rest on the final discussions between the Queen Bee and Fiona as to which one plays Christine Aguilera and which one plays Cher. I suppose it’s that old master versus pupil thing, but what the hell? I mean which of us can honestly say we have nothing more to learn? Ho ho ho, here we go again!

Friday 10th December 2010

My eyes are dim I cannot see. I have not brought my specs with me. Yes, there but for the grace of God go any of us. And this week, I’m going to give you some good examples. This song is of course the annual rallying call when the glitterati of the dairy industry join up with the Chelsea Pensioners at the Royal Hospital in a lustful chorus of celebration of the virtues of British Cheese. The event is the hottest ticket in town, and everybody goes. Except that is for the cheese industry themselves, who I assume are too busy cutting and parcelling for the Yuletide festivities to attend.

Never mind, the rest of us wallowed in the pomp and heraldry of this great occasion on their behalf. This year, the guests had to battle through the formidable challenges of snow, storm and South West Trains to get there. But they achieved this with military precision befitting the fortitude of the Pensioners themselves in their heydays. It was so cold, that I even saw Emma from Tesco with her hands in her own pockets!

In her address to the assembly, the Queen Bee waxed lyrically in poetic splendour, brazenly and without as much as a by your leave, changing the sexual orientation of cheese from masculine to feminine. “We shall evermore refer to the ‘Queen of Cheeses’” she announced, with such Orwellian authority that a re-writing of the textbooks will now surely follow. “Le” fromage will now become “La”, and the French will just have to get used to it.

At the ensuing lunch, I had the great privilege of sitting beside Lord Walker, the ex Chief of Staff of the British armed forces. What an honour for both of us. I was able to regale him with my intimate knowledge and analysis of British military history over the last 40 years. And I’m sure I saw him take notes. Yes, I admit, that this knowledge was picked up in discussions in the Horse Shoe Bar in Glasgow. And yes, the battles discussed there were different from those which exercised the strategic acumen of Lord Walker. However, I find that the principles of military engagement are easily transportable from the microscuffle to the big picture. Dodging a flying lager glass is no different from dodging an Exocet missile, really. It’s simply a matter of degree.

Given the time of year, there were unsurprisingly a few red nosed reindeers on my train home. One man said to me “I’m going to divorce my wife. She hasn’t spoken to me for two months”. “Be a bit careful,” I replied. “Women like that are hard to find”. But the red nosed reindeers who can now justifiably put their feet up for the holidays are the legions of Eurocrats who have been devising a Christmas pantomime in the High Level Experts Group in Brussels. These well meaning actors, have now had their efforts rubber stamped by the EU College of Commissioners. But they are now realising that in drafting their proposals, they forgot the first rule of pantomime....watch what’s coming behind you. So, their early ideas for controlling markets by replacing the regulation of the CAP with other means have been largely unpicked by the professionals in DG Competition. A more workable package has now emanated, which I suspect will please most EU dairy farmers, all to a man envious of the supply chain arrangements which already apply in the UK.

Of course the panto has still to be performed in public, and the question which every non-dairy farmer in Europe will now be asking is why is this being done for milk and not for us? We deal with supermarkets too. This aspect will also, I’m sure, not have gone unnoticed by the national competition authorities who have now been brought in to adjudicate on the scale of any new producer organisation. Any extension to other sectors starts to question the whole ethos of competition law EU wide... competition laws on which a whole plethora of markets and mergers have been irrevocably based.

Finally, good luck with the Christmas shopping this weekend. I’m trying to persuade the “boss” that we should each put £500 in an envelope and swap envelopes. Each of us can then take pleasure in the generosity of our offerings and be equally delighted at having received such a generous gift. I’m not going to push it though for fear of ending up as the fairy on the top of our Christmas tree. Perhaps one of you could try it out first, eh? Onward Christian soldiers.

Friday 3rd December 2010

Innovative Good King Wenceslas snow stories abound this week. My cunning stunt award goes to the Great Alexander. Anxious to avoid call offs from his Loch Lomond hooley for shop keepers, he was sending out "look it's fine" pictures of the venue, Cameron House, obviously taken when the sun was out. Yes, a noble effort without question, but he could have photoshopped out the daffodils growing in the foreground of the picture first.

Then there's the intrepid Fergus the Green, I've been laying off him in this column recently because the poor lad has been in hospital for an unpleasant op. So, where has our precocious pimpernel chosen to pursue his recuperation this week? Yes, you're right, Gdansk. Sultry Gdansk, where my iphone tells me it's minus ten degrees centigrade at the moment. Travel broadens the mind for sure but the question is, will the lad's new firsthand knowledge of the physiology of the brass monkey develop him, or cut him off in his prime?

As you know, it's hard for me to get my eyes open any wider than they already are. However, I was privileged this week to witness a "Road to Damascus" awakening at a meeting of friends in the Palace of Westminster. The chair of the meeting had imposed Chatham House rules of discipline, so I have to be a bit circumspect, but at the same time he mischievously operated Marquis of Queensbury rules of procedure. So the gloves were off. There were loads of big bejeesus farmers there - real top drawer puff candies. And they had appeared to come to the collective view that the large scale farm issue was a problem of consumer misunderstanding. The Chair described it as a "tyranny of ignorance", bless him. Then someone from the supply chain much closer to the consumer than any of us insiders, hesitantly ventured a view "why don't you present it to consumers in terms of how they will benefit and not how you in the industry will benefit" she proffered hopefully. I swear that suddenly, shafts of sunlight flooded across the room. There was a cacophony as foil wrapped chocolate pennies dropped everywhere. I could see the fairy at the top of the Christmas tree ring out a rapturous round of applause. Yes, the true joy of understanding totally enveloped the atmosphere. Then suddenly in a flash, day turned back into night when someone asked "and who’s going to pay for that then?” Whether it was the grandeur of the surroundings, or the history of the location I don't know, but at this point I fully expected a white knight on a proud stallion to charge into the room and say "I am Sir Lancelot of DairyCo. This is the kind of thing that I exist for, I will pay for this ...... happily". Of course I was disappointed. Only the powerful sound of silence prevailed. But for how much longer, I wonder?

Finally, alas England's bid for the World Cup failed. It is a small consolation to me that I stripped a tenner off Fergus the Green when the Ruskeys made it first past the post. It's a shame because I like seeing foreign football fans stroll around London. I'm one myself after all. We had some in town for the Champions League this week. I didn't recognise their scarves, so I edged in closer to see if I could identify them from the language they were speaking. But it was absolutely hopeless. I had no idea. Turned out they were from Cardiff. Yes, that's why I love London, a truly cosmopolitan city.

Friday 26th November 2010

I’ve always liked hollandaise sauce. I had lots of it recently in New Zealand. My sister makes a fantastic hollandaise sauce. So when I saw her this week, I asked her how she does it. “It’s easy”, she said. “You find your car keys in your handbag (that’s the hard part). Then you drive down to Marks and Spencer, and its there, in the chilled cabinet, waiting for you”. Yip, life is not always what it seems.

I’ve taken a bit of harsh, undeserved flak in the media this week. One headline screamed “Begg is behind the times”. Oh yeah? Well, as everyone knows, there’s no such thing as bad publicity, and so it has again proved. I’ve been inundated with messages that say “it’s not you who’s behind the times, Jim…..!” So the battle to convey the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth goes on. The next opportunity is the House of Lords next week, where I’ll be addressing some of the country’s big dairy farmers, plus a prestigious collection of other big cheeses who have an interest in our future welfare. I’m required to provide a comprehensive summary of the trends, issues, problems and solutions for the future of the world dairy industry in approximately 7 minutes. I can do this. It’ll be pimps. I mean, what can’t you do in 7 minutes? I do this all the time. I have a 7 minute version, a 15 minute version, a 30 minute version, and a one hour Pointer Sisters version for slow hands. For some, I could talk for a lifetime, and they still wouldn’t get it. You know who they are.

However, all in all, it’s been a good week media wise for Dairy UK. The Pieman is definitely starting to make an impact. Personally, I’ve spent most of the week being ignored. I know it’s hard to believe, but this can happen. I’ve been chasing this and that for meetings and responses and just getting nowhere. “Oh yes, we’ll get back to you, soon”, and “Oh my diary will be clear by 6th December, and I might have time for you then”. I mean it’s not as though I’m seeking meetings with Paolo Nuttini, or Walter Smith or anyone. I think it must be Christmas. It couldn’t be that people are avoiding me, could it?

Fortunately, one man who didn’t avoid me was a man in the FSA press office late last night, when I rang to query their inexplicable press release on clones and their progeny. “Woops”, he said, “there’s a typo. We’ll correct that.” Good move for him and me both. And I think better news for the dairy industry as we take a step forward to resolving the difficult issue of milk from the progeny of clones entering the food chain. The consumer will have the final say on all of this of course, but at least the FSA is moving astutely to regularise the legal situation with the rest of the EU, and to provide much more clarity about what can and can’t be done for farmers, processors and consumers. There are still issues to resolve over the treatment of clones relative to the progeny of clones, but the prospect of clear guidelines on procedures from the FSA soon, has moved a step closer.

Finally, the quote of the week is from Ed Garner from Kantor at a Chartered Institute of Marketing meeting in London last night. Ed is reknowned in the food industry for his ability to present at least 150 slides of numbers in about 15 minutes. His style is melifluously poetic, which both informs and entertains. He was commenting on the low uptake of fruit and vegetables in Scotland. He said that most Scots favoured fast foods. Why? Because given the state of their livers, fast foods offered the best chance of them not missing dinner. Ouch! You sometimes have to be cruel to be kind!

Friday 19th November 2010

I’m on my way from misery to happiness today, quoth the genius of The Proclaimers. Uhuh! Regrettably, I’m not there yet. Night after sleepness night has ravaged the senses after my 34 hour return trip from Auckland. I’m writing this at 3.16am. I’ve abandoned trying to sleep because my bedside clock has moved forward only 12 minutes in the last 4 hours.

There’s a howling gale outside. Can it be only 3 weeks since I was in the sultry heat of Limpopo on a game reserve? There was a rhinoceros 10 yards away and the game warden was explaining how smugglers would cut off the rhino horns, and grind them down for sale as an aphrodisiac. The “boss” had looked quizzically at me and said “Hmm. You’ve always relied on Tennents”.

This lingering insomnia has forced me to think about things for nearly 24 hours a day, and at the moment I’m thinking about Peter Kendall. Now I know it’s a worry for both of us that I should be thinking about Peter Kendall at 3.16am, but I’m trying to put my finger on what’s really troubling Britain’s dairy farmers at present. Things should be good. Prices are rising. Production is rising. The media is reporting investments on farm of £50million. But somehow the confidence, so apparent in the spring, would appear to have evaporated. There is genuine angst, and I know it’s genuine because Dairy UK’s Farmers Forum has told me so.

I had watched Peter Kendall recount the woes at a meeting early in the week. By common acclaim, this is a towering giant of a man. But sometimes the mask slips. He was recounting a meeting he’d had with Fonterra chairman Henry van der Heyden, when suddenly he slipped into a reverie. Pausing for a second, his face took on a dreamy expression, and you could almost read his mind...”Take me to New Zealand” he was thinking, “where I can produce milk for next to nothing; where the Government and the competition authorities would work for me; where I would own all the farms and all the processors; where I could spend all day making whole milk powder to make the Chinese big and strong; and where I could make lots and lots of money – maybe even be as rich as DairyCo”.  Suddenly, like Joe Egg, Peter woke up and looked around. In front of him were supermarkets, competing customers, Government officials, and worst of all......me. Heaven to hell in the blink of an eyelid!

I think that what our farmers are now describing as a dysfunctional market is in fact the new free market, and many of them, particularly the forward looking efficient ones, are disappointed with it. In a normal free market, the efficient guys go to the top and are rewarded for it. The inefficient guys change or go out. In our new free market, the “top” are the retailer supply pools, and the farmers perceive that it’s not your efficiency that gets you there, it’s your luck or your location. Many of the good guys, the ones who encouraged the free market in the first place, are facing commodity returns, and a widening price gap. They are also suspicious that their price is being compromised to maintain the liquid “elite”. And if they don’t see their milk price react instantly to improving commodity market returns, frustration turns quickly to rebellion, especially once the feed bill comes in. This discontent then reaches the “lucky” guys with the liquid contracts, because if the commodity milk price doesn’t move, then neither will theirs.

It must appear to the farmers like a vicious circle. However, milk prices in a free market don’t move exactly in line with market movements. They never have. There are always lags. But over time the statistics prove that it always sorts itself out. And a wholesale shift from retail markets to far away commodity markets, as many are now suggesting, is not the answer, although many of the farmers I’ve met this week will take some convincing of that.

Yesterday I was in Edinburgh sharing a platform with NFUS Vice President Alan Bowie at the Dairy Summit convened by the Scottish cabinet secretary Richard Lochhead. I spoke about the next 10 years. Alan spoke passionately only about the coming winter. Despite rising prices and rising production, it looks like it will be a winter of discontent. The cat now nestling beside me agrees, but I’m getting a strong vibe from her to shove off. I’m on her patch. The gloom of the night is where she feels comfortable. All I can think of is “move over mate. Is there room in there for two?”

Friday 12th November 2010

More than 2200 people are attending the IDF’s World Dairy Summit in Auckland this week, each one with a story to tell. I’ve discovered that there are more dairy cows in New Zealand than people. Also, incredibly, that 1 in 7 of the world’s population lives on a dairy farm. And even more incredible, margarine was only invented because Napoleon couldn’t afford the price of butter to feed his army.

The 2200 people exclude the army of security staff, hired at massive expense, to subdue the animal rights protestors outside the sessions. There have been only 6 of them at most. I asked one of the security guys if he could cope. “Sure,” he said. “We just wrap them up in their banners, and stack them like logs in a truck”.

The Brits here have had difficulty coping with the upside down life in the Southern Hemisphere. The Queen Bee’s influential presentation went much smoother once she’d worked out which end of the doofer to point at the screen, so that she could move forward and not back. I asked a penetrating and insightful question at another session, unfortunately by speaking into the wrong end of the microphone. My target on the platform looked at me with one of those expressions which suggests that you work in finance....as a banker! And poor Tim Bennett was denied entry to one of the economics conferences which I was chairing, because, unlike all the other economists, he’d omitted to bring his crystal ball. It’s his own fault really. I’d warned him in advance. But it turns out he didn’t have it with him. They’d needed it at the AHDB.

Tim was one of around 50 I’m told who couldn’t get in because the room was stuffed full of disciples anxious to learn about the future. That left me as the only Brit in the hall. In the position of Mercury, with the onerous responsibility of winging back the messages from the gods of markets and profits to the British dairy industry. Or so I thought, until from the platform I spied a Raymond. I’m not sure which Raymond it was. I can’t tell the difference even when I’m shaking their hands. But, a Raymond there definitely was. Sitting in a room. With me.  On the other side of the world. In the company of processors, retailers, and farmers from all points east and west. Each totally respectful of the other’s position. Each showing respect and consideration, and all of us, collectively, anxious to find the best way to generate more wealth in future for fair and equitable distribution along the supply chain. No name calling, no finger pointing, and no divisive commentary.  That’s the right way isn’t it? It’s certainly my way, because all of us have a single purpose.

Look, the unity of view from everyone here is that the demand prospects in our industry are bright. Massively bright. There are issues around supply, mostly linked to uncertainty about feed and energy prices. So, based on that, the rest is easy for companies. You just have to choose where to site your factory, and what markets to be in. What could be simpler? Do you prefer dealing with supermarkets in the EU or food processors in Asia? Where will you create the most wealth? Most people think our future depends on China and India. Will they need product from the West? Both countries say no. I agree with the Indians, not so the Chinese. But perhaps a more relevant driver of per capita dairy consumption in future is the rate at which the global population moves out of poverty. Take China again as an example. They consume 3kg of dairy products per head when they live in the countryside. This increases to 29kg per head when they move to the cities. No brainer, eh? My extreme view is that all the marketing budgets in the world should be given over to persuading the Chinese to eat cheese.

There were 700 people registered for the nutrition sessions here. That tells you something, doesn’t it? I went over to the nutrition theatre and locked the doors, telling them they couldn’t get out until they’d found answers to the growing number of consumers and legislators who are increasingly asking –‘prove it’.  This may have meant a few empty seats at the glittering gala dinner, but it would have been a tad unfair, because it’s not their fault. They are being starved of resources to create the necessary science in the new way the regulators want. That’s where the industry resource must be focussed now, and less so in sustainability where we are manifestly getting things right. Because, in the words of the great Scottish prophet Lonnie Donegan, “ I can see the train a’ comin”.

Finally, my reflective highlight of the week - the aforesaid glittering gala dinner. For a start, we at last had the dramatic Maori dances performed by guys in All Blacks jerseys which made me feel more at home. But at my dinner table I had the pleasure of the company of the chief economist of the US Department of Agriculture, Joe Glauber. We looked across the table at the world’s number one free market thinker (Andrew Ferrier) sitting next to a pillar of the Canadian dairy industry, the  most protected market in the world (Richard Doyle). Strangely, both are Canadians. Richard’s system delivers a higher milk price to farmers than Andrew’s, but at the same time, it paralyses growth. As we got into the debate, I reflected that this game is long term. If we are going to exploit our true growth potential, feed the world and be sustainable and profitable, the free market route is the only game in town!

Friday 5th November 2010

Well, the last plane out of Sydney’s almost gone and regrettably, I’ll be on it. This is a truly inspirational country. People in bars ask you if you follow the teachings of the Dalai Lama. I say “No, I’m an Alex Ferguson man myself”. When I’m in the UK, my good friend and local guru, George, always tells me that it’s another magnificent day in Paradise. I always think that it’s just as well they’ve got good weather, because they no longer have a cricket team. But I discover again that he’s easily pleased. The rain has been cascading down, generating a plethora of limp fascinators as the women of Sydney glammed up for the Melbourne Cup. Unfortunately, on racing day, I was unable to avoid a heated discussion amongst the fillies in our party over whether Sydney men glam up better than Sydney women. One comment from the cattery was that Melbourne girls dress up for Ascot, while Sydney girls dress up for Aintree. Whoah, ladies. Slow down. You might need these fingernails later if someone’s back needs scratching!

The Queen Bee is here, but she’s been controversial by rejecting the offer of a whole day in a soggy, heaving bar watching horse racing in the company in some of the world’s leading dairy raconteurs. She chose instead to go and stroke a Koala Bear. Now, those of us who’ve done this in the past, know that this is an experience broadly similar to kissing a Brillo pad. But what can you do?  I guess that some things you just have to find out for yourself.
I’m in a party of assorted UK CEOs and Chairmen and the like. All of us totally managed men, who left to our own devices couldn’t organise a children’s tea party. So, fortunately, we have with us the indefatigable Karen, Dairy Co’s own Duracell bunny. She is a veritable Cat in The Hat. No hurdle in the world is high enough to defeat the Cat. Last night, whilst exiting a quayside restaurant, the high powered executives had to organise a Board meeting to decide which of the panels of a glass wall was, in fact, the door. The Cat swiftly left the building by a window, and walked across the water to reach the bar first. Her political astuteness is out of a training manual. She rapidly and seamlessly altered her description of the following day’s farm visits from a “gallivant” to “an important study tour” when she realised that the Dairy Co Chairman was within earshot. The theory is that it’s Karen who is supposed to be learning lessons from the big cheeses. In fact, it’s totally the other way round.

The main point of discussion in the Australian dairy industry this week has been the front page news that the wife of the CEO of the Murray Goldburn co-op has been employed for 12 years providing “support” services to her husband. The sums of money involved are jaw dropping.  Strangely, I find opinion on the subject divided. The “boss” has had a look at the alleged support services provided, and has decided to submit an invoice to Dairy UK. She’s also looking for back money. Undoubtedly, if the Aussie development goes unchallenged, so will every wife of every executive in Australia. Not so happy are the co-op’s farmer suppliers who last year suffered a 29% reduction in their milk price. But in the bar in Flemington in between races, the limp fascinators are beginning to stand to attention. This shows the real value of a devoted wife to an executive’s business, they say. It’s absolutely right that this is recognised and rewarded. Hmm, of course we all agree with that don’t we? Talk to the missus about this later on tonight, lads.

It’s always a wrench leaving Australia and the hospitality at Chateau Davey. I can only scratch the surface on a short trip, but it looks to me that the dairy industry is in excellent shape for the future. That is as long as the rain continues to fall, and they work hard at getting much more money out the liquid market to share down the supply chain. And, of course, that they keep the great Mr Hollindale, farmer king of Queensland, intimately involved. As the “boss” says, “he always knows the right thing to do, at exactly the right time”. In my view, he should be manager of Rangers.   But onward we must go. I’ll soon be in Auckland for the IDF’s World Dairy Summit. But for now I’m writing this piece in a cafe overlooking a replica of Captain Cook’s Endeavour in Sydney’s Darling Harbour. Captain Cook was a great English adventurer, but any local here will tell you that putting down anchor at Botany Bay was a mistake. He should have carried on to where his replica ship is berthed now. I’m reflecting on whether we should finish the job and take The Endeavour to New Zealand. With the Queen Bee, the “boss” and the Dairy Co chairman on the oars, the Cat in The Hat in the crow’s nest, and me as Captain MacCook steering the ship, I think it’s just possible. Ok, ok, the “boss” can have a shot at steering........ as long as she doesn’t want paying.

Friday 29th October 2010

I’m still in South Africa. The boss wasn’t over impressed by Table Mountain. More like a coffee table, she said. She’s into boulders, you see. In a geomorphological sense. She’s found a place in the Western Cape that’s got big bejeezus boulders all over the place. The added bonus is that they’re covered in penguins. Now I’m not averse to looking at a rock or two myself, but the fact that the penguins like them, demonstrates to me that boulders are strictly for the birds.

It’s been a constant struggle with the boss for control of the camera. She wants to take pictures of wild life, mountains, and flowers. I want to snap football stadiums and pie shop menus. I’ve explained to her that a basic understanding of economics, and in particular inflation, comes from knowing at all times the price of a pie. She just says pass me another daiquiri.

When I first came to South Africa in 1996 I found fear and despondency amongst British residents. Apartheid was just being dismantled and they were scared. Moreover, the massive deflation of the rand meant that they were trapped there, because they couldn’t afford a house back home. Now there is a freedom of spirit. The rand is strengthening powerfully, and they’ve just got on with the rest. For me, however, it’s still the place in the world which I’ve been to where the wealth gap between the rich and the poor is the most humiliating. Yet there are constant reminders of the cultural differences with home. The most painful I saw was two signs next to each other. One said “Whale Watching Point. Take Care on the Rocks” The other said “Brit Pub – Big Screen TV”.

Although this is a private visit, it has been hugely shaped and influenced by the great Lion King Bertus, head of the South African dairy farmers. In fact I’m writing this piece in his office in Pretoria.  He and I have much in common, in that it is in the nature of our jobs to be targets. Both of us have scars where the arrows have glanced off the sides. But fortunately, so far, there have been no direct hits. Bertus has a consummate skill in being able to answer every question, clearly and unambiguously, with a simple change of facial expression. I asked him five questions straight, then relayed back to him exactly what he’d told me. He hadn’t spoken a word.

On dairy, the most significant thing to report is that the issues are almost exactly the same as in the UK. It’s simply a matter of degree.  It’s worse here because the milk price is down almost 30%, which is a worry in a market which is 60% fresh products and 90% domestic sales. Strangely for a country bereft of water, there is an oversupply of milk at the moment. That could be the source of the problem, but Bertus is a media star drumming up the unfairness of the distribution along the supply chain.  The other problem they have is their peak to trough ratio. It’s badly out of kilter for the market. Bertus taught me a new word. It’s “Volatiliteit”. It’s Afrikaans for volatility. New world or old, the problems which lie ahead are the same for us all.

Tomorrow (Saturday), I’m holding court in the Mercantile Hotel bar in George St in Sydney. So to the many Australian readers of this column, come along for a schooner. I’ll see if I can get George to pay for them. And Jo, please order in more bananas for the smoothies. We’re on our way.

Friday 22nd October 2010

It’s late in the evening. I'm sitting in Terminal 5 facing an 11 hour long haul flight. I'm watching a Japanese lady snapping everything with a camera. What do the Japanese do with all the pictures they take? Do they look at them? Do they make calendars for Christmas? October in Terminal 5 London. November in Terminal 2 Changi. Maybe it’s simply the pleasure of the click that satisfies them.

Mentally, I've allocated the whole of the forthcoming journey to unravelling the mysterious philosophical dilemmas which have been thrust on the dairy industry this week. First from Rafa: "we have a saying in Spain. If we see a white liquid in a bottle we assume its milk." Deep. Then Sir Alex: "if you see a cow in a field, it always looks better than the cow in your field. But life's never like that". Even deeper. I feel that if I can break these codes, I will have the key to the future of the dairy industry.

I consider consulting the Japanese lady, but her husband has started to grunt loudly and do press ups and squat thrusts. I reflect on whether he is a Board member of the FSA.

Without doubt, the world has gone truly mad this week, and I'm happy to join in. Yes, I predict that Wayne will be a Rangers player by Burns night. I predict that Gordon Strachan will be appointed manager elect of the England football team. And I predict that the French government will persuade the European Commission to retain milk quotas.

More madness prevailed on Wednesday at Dairy UK's cheese reception at the House of Commons. I've long since known that the way to win the hearts and minds of British members of Parliament is to give them free cheese. As I stood at the door to meet and greet, hordes of them trampled over me screaming "we'll do anything you say Jim, just give us the free cheese". The poor guys were hyper. They'd been in the chamber listening to the Chancellor's Spending Review. So after cutting jobs and services in the afternoon, they were ready to cut the cheese in the evening.

I spotted Mary Quicke in the corner. I went over to give her a welcoming kiss. But I forgot that with my glasses at the end of my nose, I can't seem to kiss anyone else wearing glasses. On this occasion, Mary was as hapless as me. As we edged towards a connection, we completely missed each other. Instead of kissing Mary, I almost kissed the honourable member for Saxton East.

This annual event, the brainchild of Dan Rogerson MP, chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for cheese, is a truly wonderful celebration of British cheeses. We used the event to highlight our campaign for mandatory country of origin labelling of cheese. We want mandatory, because voluntary doesn't appear to work. Earlier in the day, I'd done a radio interview on the subject. I was asked who I thought was abusing the existing voluntary system. But I wouldn't name names. I have far too much respect for the Irish, Dutch, French and Germans to do that. I was asked if I thought it would be difficult to secure a legislative solution. Yes, I said, because turkeys don't vote for Christmas. Dairy UK virtually never seeks legislative solutions to issues. This is an exception. We consume around 700,000 tonnes of cheese each year in the UK. Around 400,000 tonnes of that is imported. We know that UK consumers relish the provenance of local products. We want to give them the full opportunity to do that.

I'm now in Africa. In a couple of hours I'll be riding the wildebeests bare back at the foot of the Drakensburg mountains. In the baggage hall I spot the Japanese lady taking pictures. Suddenly, she approaches me. "Hah so, Jeem" she said. "Gleen cheese in sky not sun but moon. Gleen cheese turn led befo Wayne play faw Rangers". Yes, this week the truly has gone mad. [Editors note: Jim wrote his blog before the news broke that Rooney had re-signed for Manchester United, which raises the question as to just who Jim’s fellow passenger was and how she has such good inside information in the transfer market!]

Friday 15th October 2010

“You can speak about anything you like”, was the advice to me from the Chair of a farming conference I was addressing in Preston this week. OK, I thought, I’ll give them forty minutes on sex and football. Then I realised that I didn’t know enough about either to speak for that length of time. But I do know where Montenegro is in the world. And I did know that the Montenegran team at Wembley the previous evening was short of four regulars. What’ll it be like when England face the full Monte, I wondered?

I learned lots of things at the conference. But I’m a man who always believes the last person who speaks. So they could have been telling me anything. Is it right, for example, that farmers with lots of children use their own wives to judge their policy on calving intervals for the cows on their farms? “Bull the cows at 40 days”, said one farmer confidently. I grimaced, believing every word. My farmer friend continued that he’d started at nineteen and learned everything he knew from his father. Initially there had been disputes, he said, but by the time he was twenty five, it was amazing how much his father had matured!

I was speaking second, always the best place to be. You can use the first speaker as a foil, then you can get your pea shooter out early. There were some bankers there telling jokes. One said that profit was not the main driver of agricultural investment. He said it seriously, but it must have been a joke. Wasn’t it? I’ve never heard a farmer apologising to his banker for making a profit. Sorry, your honour it was a mistake. It won’t happen again. Well, make sure it doesn’t, or you’ll have to take your account elsewhere. Nope, that was definitely a wind up. Or else the banker must have attended the Craig Levein School of Forward Thinking.

But the banker and the farmer, and all the other conference speakers, talked about nothing other than expansion. Everyone was looking forward to growing their businesses by seeking out opportunities and exploiting them (the farmer in co-operative partnership with a dairy company). We are unquestionably in an era of optimism, and it’s fantastic. The collaborative supply chain approach is definitely working. I thoroughly recommend it to the French, where I’m told the occupation of the dairy trade association by rioting farmers is still continuing.

After the conference, I headed off North to find more examples of confidence. I reached the edge of the world, or Barrow in Furness as the locals call it. My appointment was with Les, Hot Shot Bottled Milk Buyer. Les took me out to show me the wonderful countryside, and in glorious sunshine we stopped and gazed over Peel Island. Then the wind ups started. Peel Island has five houses, a pub and a castle. According to Les, it also has a king recognised by the sovereign authority, who doubles as the landlord of the pub. As a simple trusting lad, I took all this in until I asked Les what kind of beer the King of Peel served in his pub. “Oh, only orange juice”, he said!

More wind ups continued as I learned all about foam parties, and all night discos in the Blue Lagoon, a ship moored in the harbour at Barrow. But of course the serious messages were progressively becoming clear to me. In all, I met three Dairy UK members operating in the BMB sector in and around Barrow. All of them were investing significantly in expanding their businesses in what is an extremely competitive sector. More proof that we are in an era of optimism. The supply chain collaborative approach is working.

Friday 8th October 2010

I’ve been getting up close and personal with the royals this week. Me and doubtless many others who had the privilege of attending two great celebrations of farming excellence; first at the Bath and West, then later in the week at the glittering-eleven quid for a gin and tonic-Grosvenor for the Farmers Weekly awards. Yes, Charlie is my darling in the song, but on video at the Grosvenor, the message from The Prince of Wales was keep farming in a museum. “To talk about farms as units was the language of the factory”, quoth the young chevalier. “Agriculture is not a production line. It should never be described as an industry”, he added. Whoah, there, Charlie. No one doubts your conviction, but life moves on.

Peter Kendall, clearly affected by Charles’ video presence came over to my table, and kneeled down in front of Tim Bennett, his predecessor as NFU head honcho. Hootsmon! There were gasps of surprise from those in attendance. If Tim had had a sword, I’m sure he would have tried to knight him. I thought of offering him my skhi-n-duh, but I thought it might have been misconstrued. I was in enough trouble already for having had a five minute conversation with an old adversary before realizing that I was in fact talking to a life size cardboard cut out of him. I’d wondered why it had been so constructive. I’d been persuading him to go green. I’m sure the reply had been not while I’m in the red.

Contrast the comments of Charles with those of his sister in law The Countess of Wessex in the flesh at the Bath and West dinner. Pragmatic, sympathetic, positive and optimistic was how I’d describe her keynote speech. She talked understandingly about “larger units” and said the challenge for the “industry” was to combine industrial production with a “darling buds of May image”. A nice “wummin” all round. Knowledgeable, informed and a genuinely interested contributor.

The angst of the week came of course with the annual Dairy Co margin report. It was greeted as ever with howls of injustice from the farming unions as once again the report suggested that farmers had lost out in their share of the retail price of liquid milk. All commentators again heaped piles of invective on the supermarkets. The following will therefore be an unpalatable message to these commentators. The criticism of supermarkets in this context is in reality a criticism of a liberalized market place. Hard though it is to accept, the factors which influence the farm gate price of milk (almost exclusively demand and supply) are completely different from those which influence retail prices of milk. There are a number of stages at which value is added to milk such that farm gate and retail prices are almost completely delinked. There is therefore no necessary reason why any change in one should trigger a change in the other. It’s the simple law of economics. It is of course absolutely fair for farmers to criticize their absolute level of price relative to their costs, but that’s got nothing to do with share of the retail price. The Dairy Co margins report is a hook for eloquent protest, but it is nothing more than the expression of a free market working as markets do.

Finally thanks to those of you who felt moved to help me cover my embarrassment, being tieless when unexpectedly receiving an award this week from the Countess of Wessex. I have now received a number of ties at least two of which go back to the 70s. If I wore these I’d become even more stylistically dysfunctional. It was nice, however to be fondly re-acquainted with the kipper!

Friday 1st October 2010

With the continuing absence of my wife on family business elsewhere in the UK, I’ve discovered a new stream of creativity in the kitchen. So, dishes now successfully added to my culinary repertoire include the Scotch Pie Omelette, Pakora in a Tempura Batter, and the healthy Tomato and Stornoway Black Pudding yogurt.

I’m having nutritional profiles for these new dishes constructed by the Dairy Council, but I’m not sure whether any of them will qualify for green, amber or red traffic lights. So I’m provisionally categorising them as blue, because I think they’re all winners.

Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah. Three cheers for National Disinformation Week. We’ve just had it, and this year it’s been better than ever. It always co-incides with the party political conference season, and, yes, there have been some wonderful entries from Blackpool and Manchester. But this year, for the first time ever, the gold medal goes to the food industry.

Close, but no cigar, was the Women’s Food and Farming Union, with a meeting this week to promote the consumption of unpasteurized raw milk. At this meeting, the following information was presented by the proponents of raw milk to the audience as facts. “Pasteurised milk causes autism”. “Raw milk cures boils and pimples”, “most pasteurised milk in the UK comes from eastern Europe” and “high somatic cell counts in milk is good because it keeps the bacteria in raw milk alive, keeping in the goodness” I thought all this kind of stuff went out with the Salem witches, but no, it appears not.

“The gold medal goes to The Consumer’s Association publisher of Which? magazine. They issued a press release this week with the strapline “Health Claims Rip Off is Set to Continue”. This refers to a sensible Commission decision to try and bring some sanity into the health claims process. The release goes on “Consumers are being taken for a ride, needlessly paying a premium on the basis of health claims on food that have no scientific evidence to back them up”.  It also talks about “bamboozling customers”. The truth is very different. The dairy industry is not bamboozling anyone. We are tearing our hair out to get the legitimate science, which is tried and tested and has underpinned milk and dairy products consumption for years, recognised by EFSA. And we are working patiently to deliver that objective with EFSA, who themselves have been severely constrained by the approvals process laid down for them by the Commission. I can only assume that when the Consumers’ Association made these all embracing comments, they couldn’t have been talking about the dairy industry.

I’m back in the kitchen now penning this piece. I’m in serious trouble. One of my cats is injured and I’m trying to get her down to the vet. But after three gargantuan attempts to get her into the transporter, the score is 3-0 to the cat. She is not a happy pussy, I’m waiting for things to calm down. But I know for sure, that if I don’t get this sorted out  before the boss returns, then it’ll be me and not the cat who’ll be mince. Now I wonder if I should try stroking her neck…..!

Friday 24th September 2010

The Englishman abroad is a truly wondrous phenomenon. Everywhere he goes, he takes a little piece of England with him. This week, some Dairy UK officials have fled from the tyranny of the desktop to fly the flag on the battlefields of the European Dairy Association annual ceilidh in the Netherlands. So, I’ve had the honour of watching real quality in action. But before I start, a poser: can you name any Dutch musician, anyone at all, ever? Think about it.

First to impress me was Eco Ed Komorowski. He was out stravegin the streets of Den Haag when he was caught in a sudden thunderstorm and had to jump on to a passing tram. He was momentarily embarrassed, because as everyone knows, Eco believes in the cashless society. However, quick as a flash, he put his hotel luggage ticket into the stamping machine, smiled at the conductor, and walked on. Yes, every pound’s a prisoner, and we at Dairy UK wrote the book.

Later on, I was sitting in the EDA Board meeting, wrestling with the complexities of bureaucracy, when I heard rapturous applause coming from the meeting next door. It went on for donkeys’ ages, and I began to wonder what Elle McPherson was doing in the Netherlands. It turns out that the applause was for none other than our own Malthusian Pete, and reflected the gratitude of the whole EU dairy industry for steering them through the work of the EU Council’s High Level Expert Group. So pleased are they, that they’ve now appointed him to lead them through the development of their position on CAP Reform, and their judgement will not be misplaced.  Clearly on a roll, while receiving his accolade, Malthusian moved into new uncharted territory by smiling briefly. Moreover, this momentary abandonment of the stiff upper lip was recorded on camera. A rare event this, but the outcome was verging on art. Move over Churchill the dog. A new star is born.

Malthusian’s leadership on the HLEG dossier is going to be vital in the next couple of months, because I’m in little doubt now that this is going to be the EU Commission’s Christmas present to the dairy industry. Some say that the presents have already been chosen, all that’s now being considered is the wrapping paper. But increasingly, as I listen to my European colleagues, and to the Commission, I believe that the English view is starting to prevail. So, if we’re right in the belief that the Commission’s real desire in all of this is to get the industry and not them to regulate the milk supply, then that’s going to be tough. This is because supply is a function of price, and the EU is not an island in the global dairy market. At the very least a support system at the base of the EU market will be necessary, and that’s what I expect to be on offer.

I also think that the complexities of changing EU competition law to accommodate producer organisations will become glaringly obvious, and ultimately defeat any desire to pursue this area. But where I feel the Commission can now win the political battle, for that is what it is, is on contracts. Not prescriptive ones, just contracts, across the EU, with every farmer in possession of one. In my view that would be fully justified and an open door if the Commission push hard.

So, a successful foray into foreign parts for the Dairy UK boys. But as I left Den Haag, I found myself chuckling at what, for me, was the quote of the Congress. It came from the EDA’s Benedict Masure, who tried to breathe some life into the flailing multi-lateral trade agreement. “The WTO is not dead” she said, “but it’s certainly not alive”.

And of course the answer to the poser at the beginning of this piece is that there has only ever been one memorable Dutch musical act. They only ever had one hit, but it was a classic. They were called Pussycat (after me) and the hit was “Mississippi”. Check it out now on YouTube, you won’t be disappointed. (“Want to bet?” Ed.)

Friday 17th September 2010

I found myself stalking the Pope this week. Not deliberately, of course. It’s just that all my meetings seemed to be next to where he was. I finally saw him in the flesh, climbing up the steps to his plane at Glasgow airport. I sent a text to my wife to tell her, but she absolutely refused to believe me. She’s not been herself since last weekend, when a salesman in Boots inadvertently assumed that her sister was her daughter. I can understand that that must have been quite a shock. I consoled her with the suggestion that since they were standing at the Oil of Olay counter, it was probably a sales pitch. Yip, I certainly know when I need to be sensitive!

I’ve had a crisis of identity myself this week. First, a farmer assailed me for the defamatory stuff I write in my monthly column in “The Dairy Farmer”. Eh? Do I look that much like Ian Potter? Then my old mate and President of my fan club, Derek Mead, called for my resignation as head of DairyCo in his piece in the Western Morning Post. Derek, the letter’s in the post. Worst of all, in the otherwise excellent Dairyman feature of “The Grocer” magazine, my smiling visage appeared next to a quote that palpably was never me.  For goodness sake, Julia. we only met about a week ago. Couldn’t you tell that I was a man? Finally I met a man in the Horse Shoe bar in Glasgow who asked me if I was in fact the Pope. Bless you, my son. But no!

The Horse Shoe bar in Glasgow is where I go to experience real life. And real life is what you get, in spades. One side of the bar is where all of Glasgow’s criminal fraternity meets. On the other side, you’ll find the cream of the city’s legal profession. It’s the only place I know where it takes less time to have an appointment with your lawyer than it does to go to the toilet. I’m there now, writing this piece.

Earlier today I was entertained and educated once again by the great Maitland Mackie, Laird of Aberdeenshire, at the Dairy UK Scotland Board meeting. Talking about cloning he said “scientifically, there is no difference whatsoever between a cloned cow and a potato.  It is exactly the same scientific principle. If they are going to ban milk and beef from clones, then they should do the same to potatoes, but they’re several hundred years too late”.  Hmm, I wondered. Perhaps the industry should explain the issue to consumers in these terms.

The previous day, meeting on Maitland’s own patch in Aberdeen, the Food Standards Agency Board had gone against the advice of their own staff and declined to confirm that their existing policy on cloning (i.e. that the new Novel Foods Regulation should be the mandatory route to market for food from all descendents of clones), should prevail in the new legislation.  Bizarrely, in considering the advice they give to Ministers, they adopted no alternative policy for now.  So we’re in limbo, albeit in an extremely difficult area.  You might ask what happens until they sort it out?  Can you, or can’t you?  The current Novel Foods Regulation applies, with the FSA’s current interpretation that this catches all descendents of clones, even if this is completely impractical to enforce. Ultimately, of course, the consumer will have the last word. But in the meantime, I hope no-one goes after a farmer or processor should they do anything in blissful ignorance, either because the law is unknown, or because the government has failed to police the law.

Friday 10th September 2010

The top dogs at the RABDF all turned into Cheshire cats at the NEC cow show this week. It’s always dangerous to be convinced by your own arguments, but by talking to each other, and looking in mirrors, they were united in the view that the move up the A45 from Stoneleigh was a good one. Will we see the NFU and the AHDB now follow, I wonder?

My view is that the RABDF driven by the enterprise of CEO Nick Everington and the panache of Chairman David Cotton can be justly satisfied with their decision. And, with the resourceful John Alvis now on board as President, I, as a member am happy to say very well done.

But before anyone thinks I’ve gone completely soft, when the RABDF cabal get together for the post event analysis, I advise them to give some ear to the now impoverished standholders. They faced more ‘extras’ than could be delivered by the Pakistani cricket team. Yip, NEC was the name of the venue. It was also what they had to have to levy some of these charges.  £1100 for a wireless feed for two days for example. Stand catering to use only NEC staff to dole it out. £165 for a single electric socket, more than double the Stoneleigh price. And, jaw-droppingly, a bill of £36 in the hotel next door presented to the Queen Bee for a plate of soup, a cup of tea, and a cheese and tomato sandwich. Help ma boab. At these prices she could reasonably have expected to have kept the waiter. It must have been really tough for anyone who bought a round of drinks. I concluded that the NEC was a training ground for Ryanair. Great event, ouch on the wallet!

During the week, the Queen Bee and I took time out to address a large group of farmers from Ireland. There the Queen Bee encountered Joe from Cavan. Now Cavan men are not known for their generosity of spirit. Indeed, emigrating crows flying over the county are advised to take a packed lunch. But before the meeting I watched as Joe gave the Queen Bee a bearhug cuddle; then a slobbery big kiss, and then, finally, he asked her her name. I thought to myself that’s the way they’d do it in Glasgow, except that they would probably not get round to asking her name!

The Dairy UK conference once again generated excitement and fervour as the seven veils were ritually and progressively peeled off to tantalisingly reveal the future of the dairy industry in the UK. I can forgive attendees who might have been overawed by the glitter of the occasion, and failed to take in any of the messages. For those in that situation, I’ve picked out three significant things that I heard. First, be aware of the likelihood that the CAP in future may be a policy that protects small farmers and public goods. In the UK, we want a policy that protects commercial farmers and food production. Second, farmers must fight like hell for the single farm payment. Remember, that in the UK, it accounts for getting on for 40% of the £62,000 average dairy farmer’s annual profit. Thirdly, dairy processors post quota will move to wherever the milk supply is plentiful and efficient. We have to make sure that that is the UK. I see this as a real opportunity.

Finally, congratulations to Welshie from Defra. After seven attempts at the Milk Marketing Forum’s ‘drink the fastest pint of milk’ stand, she finally beat my time. Not surprisingly, after seven pints, she had to be bounced out of the arena like a rubber ball. But I bear no grudges. She had joined Fergus the Green, the Queen Bee, and the Pieman as all demonstrating that they had bigger mouths than me. In a way, I found that quite comforting!

Friday 3rd September 2010

On arrival chez moi last night, the delightful aroma of a cloutie dumpling wafted towards me from the kitchen. In a Scottish household that can only mean one thing: there’s a birthday in the house. My spirits sank when I remembered that it was, in fact, mine. The tradition of celebrating birthdays with a cloutie dumpling is one that I’m desperately keen to hang on to. There is after all no more competitive arena on earth than the family fight to ensure that the silver sixpence within, wrapped up in a piece of greaseproof paper, ends up in your slice.

I had been reminded of my birthday earlier in the week. I had been to the doctor, and the practice nurse had spotted my date of birth because it was the same as her own. She loudly proclaimed to me and to the rest of the waiting room that she was 50 and she was having a big party to celebrate. She said “she wanted to go out with a bang”. Eh? What? “Go out…. at 50? What was she talking about?”  While I was waiting I’d been reading the new Dairy Council publication “Get Healthy, Feel Great” There’s a chapter in there with the title “There’s no magic age when puberty can knock on your bedroom door”. Sometimes I feel that I’m still waiting for the knock. The nurse asked me what I was going to do. “Oh, when I reach 50, I’ll probably do the same”, I said.

The Dairy Event is now almost on us. I predict a record event, if the record numbers at our conference and dinner are anything to go by. The move from Stoneleigh to Birmingham is turning out to be a sound one, and that, I interpret, as a further sign of growing confidence. Late in the day, we have been fortunate to add a distinguished panel of journalists to our conference programme. They, hopefully, will tell us whether as an industry, we project the right image to the outside world. I anticipate that we might be in for a lecture or two, and I hope we’re big enough to listen. Once again, the loquacious David Homer will be in control of the roving mike, so those of you in the audience will be asked for an opinion whether you have one or not. It’s good to talk.

But, you know, it always helps to look on the positive side of the challenges that the industry faces. I attended a good meeting this week of communications people going over the media plans being prepared in anticipation of the next phase of public scrutiny on large scale dairy farming. I was, for once, in the unique position of being told that we had to be more positive and confident about what we’re doing. As I listened, I thought how true that was. Our “difficulties” now seem to be coming from go-ahead farmers investing in the future of the industry. In the past it’s been the lack of investment that’s been the problem. The issue of reconciling these investments with consumer acceptability still remains, but, for sure, it’s a much better problem to have.

Finally, I can now hear again. I haven’t been able to hear a thing for three months. I’ve simply nodded politely to everything anyone has said to me, but in truth, it’s all gone over my head. This, of course, has been both a blessing and a curse. But, now the National Health Service has cured me, and it’s good to be back. I wonder if anyone else will notice a difference!

Friday 27th August 2010

No Bank Holiday stampede at my station this morning. Yes, the platform was as busy as the Rangers’ end, but only because we were all crammed under the small canopy to keep out of the pouring rain. The man next to me was trachled because he couldn’t find his wife. I never have that problem. If I can’t find my wife, I just go the first shop with a sale sign in the window and stand by the till until she appears.

This has been unquestionably the longest week of the year. Everyone has been subdued by the weather. Prickly is perhaps a better word, but certainly not by the heat. Except me, of course. I’ve been embroiled in another discussion with The Great Alexander about his spelling. He tells me he went to a good school, so good it was approved. But I see no evidence of it in his emails. He’s been in Dubai this week, which I suppose is the right place for someone called Sandy.  Alas, I fear that the camels have been kicking too much sand into his Blackberry. I have been forced to recount to him the exchange between two kids in a Belfast classroom. “How do you spell psycho?” says one. “S-E-I-K-O,” groaned the other, “the same as the **** watch, you numbskull!

At HQ, we’ve been preparing for the Dairy Event, and of course for the 2010 edition of the greatest show on earth – the Dairy UK Annual Conference and Dinner. This will be the first grassless Dairy Event, with 100% housed attendees. Perhaps that’s a sign of the times. We’re not complaining, our numbers for the conference and dinner are at record levels. And that’s good because large scale is clearly cool. And of course it just goes to show, that it’s not the scale of things that counts, it’s the quality of the management.

Of course if cloning was legal, we could have doubled our attendance instantly, with all the extras thinking exactly the same way as the prototype. Who would your prototype be, eh? Cloning will undoubtedly feature extensively in the debates at our conference, and at the Dairy Event. I have a feeling I know how that debate is going to go, because as I write this piece, my desk is littered with letters citing massively diverse views on the subject. Some of them, many of you have seen, so you know what’s coming. For a complex subject, it’s remarkably simple. Whether clones or their progeny require legal approval or not, the real issue is consumer acceptability. If the industry’s customers don’t want the products, and that is the position at the moment, that’s the end of it until they do. We are a consumer led industry, and that’s the driving influence. We’ll see who agrees with me at the conference.

The end of week brought some sobering reality. Some of my colleagues and friends in Glasgow have been spared the pain of their football team having to participate further in the Euromickey Cup. So the challenge of having to work out travel schedules to future opponents with names from the menu of a late night kebab house has now been mercifully avoided. However, every cloud has a silver lining. Rangers against Manchester United is an alluring prospect, especially for the soft southerners. Battle of Britain, eh? Toffee, I say.

Friday 20th August 2010

Henry Winter, football correspondent of The Daily Telegraph surpassed himself poetically this week. He described Ryan Giggs’ performance for Manchester United as ‘nutmegging Old Father Time’. Beautiful, I thought. I try to do it every day myself.

If you’re like me, you always read the sports section of your morning paper first. Then the cartoons, then the crossword. When you get back in the evening, your wife tells you, at length, what was in the rest of it. But on the day of the Henry Winter quote my train got held up by a stray panther at Clapham Junction. So I read on…even reaching the science section. There I found the headline ‘The White Stuff may not be the Right Stuff’. It went on…”is cows’ milk doing children more harm than good?”, followed by the usual summary of myths and hypothesis put up, usually by overseas Professors looking for research funds. Shockingly irresponsible, (the arguments were later torn to shreds by Professor Peter Elwood), and only possible because the author of the piece had no nutritional qualifications. If he had, the law would have prevented him from writing it. Nuts, eh?

This takes me neatly on to ‘Tiny Teeth’, ‘Tiny Tums’, and ‘Baby Nosh’. What do you know about them? They were not in fact amongst the runners at York this week, but they certainly moved just as quickly. They are the titles of three Dairy Council publications, aimed at health professionals (the people who actually know about giving milk to schoolchildren). They are so much in demand by health professionals that we had them re-printed two weeks ago. They have all gone again. In total 560,000 have been requested by and distributed to health professionals in the last year. There are no funds to produce more, but every day more and more orders come in from health professionals, and have to be turned down.

At the same time, more and more articles like the one in the Daily Telegraph about feeding milk to children appear. Ask yourself, would you rather that the consumers of the milk and milk products that you as farmers and processors produce, hear about their nutritional benefits from qualified health professionals, or from unqualified journos in The Daily Telegraph? If you are a farmer, and you are concerned, have a word with your DairyCo Board member. If you are a processor, you’ll be hearing from me shortly.

And finally, on the subject of meaningful quotes, those of you still seeking a moral direction (Queen Bee, Dairy Industry Comms Directors, DairyCo Board, Fergus the Green, Simon the Pieman, Cannon and Ball, the A team, et al, please take note) could do a lot worse than to re-read the utterings of that towering intellectual Jimmy Reid, laid to rest in Glasgow this week. I watched the funeral live on TV at the office. The eulogies were given by a litany of great Scots from working class backgrounds who have achieved great things, including Sir Alex Ferguson and Billy Connolly. Connolly in particular recalled a conversation with Reid as they were walking through a Glasgow housing scheme. He had remarked that behind every window there could be a world champion yachtsman or a Shakesperian actor. But we would never know because they would never set foot on a yacht or a stage.

Jimmy’s famous ‘rat race’ speech on his appointment as rector of Glasgow University was his most celebrated, and described in the New York Times as ‘the greatest speech since President Lincoln's Gettysburg address. But the quote going on my wall was his remonstration to the Clyde workers who participated in the ‘work in’ at the Govan shipyard. ‘There will be no hooliganism. There will be no vandalism. And there will be no bevvying, because the world is watching us, and it is our responsibility to conduct ourselves with responsibility, and with dignity and with maturity.’ It’s a mantra that Scots everywhere in the world have practiced ever since.

Friday 13th August 2010

I’m writing this in a posh hotel in Italy. You know, the kind of place where the towels are so fluffy you can hardly get them in your suitcase. It’s 34 degrees, and the boss is bronzing beside me. I’m not. I’m a peely wally man myself. It shows sacrifice, and aligns you with the masses. It also saves you the outrageous cost of the plab!

I’m thinking about what the Italians can teach us about pushing up milk consumption. And I’m learning. First, it seems that everyone in Italy takes hot milk in their coffee. Not of course in their tea, but then not many of them drink tea. So in posh hotels like this, when the boss drinks tea, and I drink coffee, we get two jugs of milk and not one. Transfer this principle to the UK, where the number of tea and coffee drinkers is roughly eaksy, right away, you double the consumption.

But it’s what they do with cheese that’s inspirational. First of all, they block out all the competition. Where I am, in the foothills of Mount Vesuvius, eating out you have two choices of restaurant – Italian or pizzeria. No French, Indian, Thai, Chinese, Tierra del Fuegian whatsoever. So all you do is eat cheese in a whole variety of interesting ways. But it’s what they do with mozzarella in its uncooked form that’s so fascinating. They add a little bit of tomato, a sliver of basil, a drizzle of virgin olive oil, and they call it Caprese. Instantly, it becomes the sandwich of choice for the common man, the office worker, the tourist, and all the swanks who are preening themselves in front of me as I write in my posh hotel. These include, I am advised, the boss.

So where is our Caprese in the UK? I want you to understand that I’ve done my bit to make it happen. Years ago, when the only variety of pizza that anyone in the UK had heard of was an amore, I was able to convince the powers that be at the Milk Marketing Board to reduce the milk price for mozzarella cheese by 2p per litre (or was it two pennies per gallon?) to allow us to tap into the then unknown pizza retail market. It worked, and we became major European producers. We still are, but the product remains largely unknown to UK consumers because we don’t give it to them in a form they can eat it. It needs something with it, like virgin olive oil, tomato and basil.

My challenge to our cheese marketeers and to the BCB (mozzarella is just as British as cheddar is to the New Zealanders) is to get the Caprese into mainstream sandwich eating in the UK. You’ll never look back.

Meanwhile, back at HQ, there is a degree of satisfaction that weeks of hard work by Dairy UK penetrated the conscience of the Prime Minister when he stepped in to save the Welfare Milk Scheme.  And so we have another Conservative politician who didn’t fancy the same historical legacy as Margaret Thatcher. No matter that there was a touch of Laurel and Hardy about the process, it’s the end result that counts. But the job is not yet done, there’s still the £1.5m school milk top up to consider. Originally this was destined for Dairy UK for a promotion and education project. Now, it has an uncertain future. Not surprisingly, Dairy UK has been knocking on the doors of Defra this week. At the moment, no-one appears to be in.

Oh well, time for a gelato in a pokey hat. Now will I have a fragola or a zuppa inglese, or perhaps a straggliatella. If I was in the UK, I’d probably choose between a Mister Softee or a Mivvi. Hmm. I’m afraid that here again, as far as ice cream is concerned, the Italians have got us licked!

Friday 6th August 2010

The Queen Bee continues to resist my overtures to her to be the office guinea pig to try out Boris's new London bikes facility. A gleaming new rack of bicycles is now positioned right outside our door, but so far no Dairy UK or Dairy Council posterior has engaged meaningfully with a Boris saddle. "I can build, and even plaster a wall" she says "but I can't ride a bike!" In order to convince her of the efficiency of Boris's innovation, the highlight of the week was going to be a winner take all race from the office to Waterloo Station – me on the bike and the Queen Bee on the Jubilee line. Then the accursed clones took over.

We've all had to learn new words this week like insemination and paratrooper. And for the first time, some of us have had to learn more about the reproductive systems of sires and daughters than we'd choose to discuss at dinner parties. When I need to have information on this kind of subject, I always turn to the ladies at Dairy Co who have always provided me with an abundance of technical detail. And so it has been this week. Why can't it all be as straightforward, as in the old Incredible String Band song about the amoeba: “...and when I look, there's two of me. Both as handsome as can be.”

Most Frankenstein Foods stories explode in the Daily Mail, and always with banner headline. And of course this is exploited to the full by the radical organisations, whether their concerns are about what's in food, or about animal welfare. It is a relatively straightforward thing for the media in the UK to malign an industry without too much risk of redress. If something is wrong, all that's usually offered is an apology somewhere next to the greyhound results. It is very different in the US where "misquoting" regularly results in successful litigation. Maybe that's why consumers in the US seem to have a different attitude to issues such as cloning and GM. But once the story is out, you must do something about it. You can't just sit and hope it goes away.

As I sit her at the end of the week, the existence of "illegal" milk in the food chain has been progressively eliminated by the Food Standards Agency, and Dairy UK has been directly involved in that process. Now, we are all working on the future, because we are all aware that there are animals around in the system which at some point in the future have the potential to re- generate the difficulties we've experienced this week. So we have to get it right.

From my point of view I think that the food safety case for milk from the progeny of clones is fully proven. I'm also pretty confident that the welfare case will in time be proven too. But the ethical case is not, and just like large scale farms, and housed cattle systems a large amount of consumer education is going to be required. What I believe is undeniable is that the proper route for the debate is the EU Novel Food legislation. That must be properly implemented and clearly understood, because it will deliver the transparency that has been lacking this week. You simply cannot experiment with food in secret. So while the process is in place to resolve this issue, the traceability system which is essential to deliver transparency is probably not. Had it been in place the immense pressure that's been imposed on the industry this week would have been removed. I was delighted to hear that Food Minister Jim Paice commented on Wednesday that he was going to do something about this. It's badly needed.

My wife has been distinctly unimpressed by this all week. Especially when the screeching of the scary woman from Sustain made the television rock and frightened our cats. As I left the house this morning, she said to me “Can you bring me home a George Clooney clone? “ I think I'll just invest in a George Clooney mask. Then she'll never know the difference!

Friday, 30 July 2010

As I emerged from the car park at Nantwich I faced two traffic control stewards. One was enthusiastically waving me forward, the other was firmly telling me to stop. Uhuh, I thought. There must be a Ferrari behind me being waved through to the front. But then I thought a cheesemaker in a Ferrari? You’re having a laugh!

Still going through my mind was my meeting the day before with executives from Friends of the Earth. They had told me to forget about all the good things that supermarkets had done for elite farmers with contracts, product innovations and integrated supply chains etc. It was on the treatment of the common famer supplying commodity cheese that the industry should be judged. OK, so what better place to make this judgement than Nantwich (unfortunately, pre-billed as the World Cup of cheese awards, thereby automatically putting the kiss of death on any entrants for England, I mused).

I found the mood of the cheese industry at Nantwich a mixture of glowing smiles and worried frowns, not unlike a gladiatorial forum where the winners eat up the losers. Is the divergence between the winners and losers in the cheese industry becoming more apparent I wondered? Well, not if my mate Cheesy Peasy is anything to go by. I had the privilege of sitting next to this northern buzz bomb at lunch. Cheesy is the ultimate tonic. ‘So little time, so many people to meet,’ he breezed’. ‘Only 24 hours in a day, it’s just not enough,’ he continued. Cheesy and I had shared a platform at a conference in Cheshire last month. He had been asked to speak about what goes through the mind of a supermarket supplier. His first slide identified four things – women, football, fast cars, and beer. ‘Why did you think it would it be any different for me,‘ he told the audience.

In terms of defining technical product excellence, Nantwich has no equal. A total of 3,200 cheeses are up for prizes, and more than 900 of them leave with prestigious gongs. One creamery - Taw Valley in Devon - won UK Supreme Champion that’s among 34 awards including 17 golds. What an incredible stash. In my view, cheesemaking should be an Olympic sport, and the cheesemaker at Taw Valley should start to receive lottery funding immediately. Incidentally, in passing, I trust you all responded to Lord Coe’s plea this week for volunteers for the Olympics. My wife nominated me as a sandpit for the long jump, so that the competitors would always have a nice soft landing!

But listen. I wonder if anyone at Nantwich has thought about extending the awards beyond technical excellence and marketing. What about awards for leading price initiatives with customers, margin and profitability, export penetration, best premium/commodity ratio, adding value beyond the commodity return, and milk price returned to the farmer. Let’s be honest, it’s the technical excellence that drives the margin. So in this modern world of measuring outputs rather than processes, if you’re a cheesemaker, wouldn’t you be just as proud if you were crowned the 2011 Supreme Champion for delivering the highest margin to your company and highest milk price to your farmers? You wouldn’t even need a cheese iron to work it out.

At Nantwich, we shared a stand with the British Cheese Board. Before I left I asked the nice leady from Kindred, the BCB’s PR advisors, for a piece of cheese to take home to my wife. She gave me a 20g portion pack of cheddar. She clearly knew better than me what every woman wants. Hey, what the hell. Small can be big, eh?

There were so many entries at Nantwich that the judging for the Supreme Champion took an inordinately long time, and I personally missed the traditional tea and fruit cake as a result. In the end, the top prize went to a parmesan cheese from Italy. It was made by a company called Ferrari Dairy. Now about that incident in the car park...

Friday, 23 July 2010

This week I’ve wrestled the reins of the blog from the DG, who is relishing the chance to recharge his creative batteries. To my certain knowledge, I’m the only person to have guest edited the blog more than once. This tells you much about the DG’s iron grip on the workplace. We all know the Queen Bee, Fergus the Green and Alexander the Great. But what of Auld Bluenose himself? The Dear Leader? Paulo Nutini’s London Agent? Well you hear enough from him each week, so I’ll move quickly on.

Will I use this opportunity to talk about the emasculation of the FSA this week? Big issues such as this week’s CAP conference or the launch of yet another report urging people to eat less meat and dairy? Well, yes – I’ve just mentioned them. But what I’m more keen to talk about is the fact I’ve got just seven more days as Communications Director of Dairy UK, and as the last few weeks have involved a seemingly endless series of handover lunches with key journalists and contacts, I wonder why on earth I’m going. Of course, it’s not got anything to do with the job. Or the people. All of which has been great fun.

It’s all to do with my long-term dream of sailing to the Caribbean and back. Now, we’re not doing it in a pea-green boat, although I suspect Mrs F. may have relished being described as a ‘Pussy Cat bride’ in last week’s column. But when I tell people that we’ll be spending the next 13 months of our lives in a space that measures just 10m long by 3 wide and pitches about in all directions, people tend to react in one of two ways. You’ve got those who smile wistfully and say ‘what fun – have a great time’. Then you’ve got the other, largely male group who ask: ‘And this is just you and your wife, eh? We’ll see you in a couple of weeks then!’

In a vain effort to add a note of worthiness to what would otherwise be a year of stolid self indulgence, we’ve decided to raise money for a good cause. No, not the Seaman’s Rum Fund; nor the Former Pirate’s Benevolent Institution. Since we’ll be spending a year on the high seas, we’re hoping to build up a donation to the Marine Conservation Society, which does almost exactly what it says on the tin. We hope to raise a pound for every mile we cover. Don’t worry, Jim, that’s the more generous nautical mile – but we should cover some 10,000 of them over the year. If you want to keep up with our tally of miles (and pounds), you can follow our progress on http://blog.mailasail.com/summersong course, it won’t all be fresh mackerel and copious grog. There’ll be thunderstorms, tidal waves and even, as one unlucky South African couple discovered this week, balletic whales landing on the foredeck. And I’ll miss the great characters I’ve met in the job – from colleagues at Milk HQ in London to roundsmen in Wigan. I’ll try and keep a stiff upper lip, though, as we tuck into lobster and cool beers on a deserted beach. But above all, I wish you and the dairy industry all plain sailing.

Friday, 16 July 2010

St Swithin's day is always staggeringly memorable. Firstly it always rains. But more significantly it usually marks the start of the British Open Golf Championship - I’ll be in St Andrews at the weekend roaring on Rory. Last time I was there for the Open, I recall a Japanese journalist describing it as ‘a glamorous event’, but why didn’t they hold it in the summer?

On St Swithin’s day in London, I had as much fun as it’s possible to have under an umbrella. The last ever National Dairy Benevolent Institution lunch took place at The Farmers’ Club. I always like to strike a blow against the establishment by not wearing a tie at The Famers’ Club. Once, memorably, I smuggled the great ATG in Bermuda shirt, shorts and flip flops right through to the terrace without detection. This time, I got as far as former DTF President Bryan Smith who reminded me that the lunch was only for people who were fully dressed.

I sat next to the charity’s accountant who was absolutely charming but I began to get a bit alarmed as he progressively revealed his intimate and in depth knowledge of global casinos. Why was this the last NDBI lunch I wondered? I’ve been in tight circumstances before but I’ve never been shoe horned in like we were around that lunch table. I prayed for the comforting environment of a sardine in a tin. It was only possible for every second person to lean forward to get the food from their plate at any one time.  So we had to work out and stick to a fairly well disciplined seesaw arrangement that allowed us to complete our meals. I had to leave some green beans on my plate. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to eat them, it was that I couldn’t physically reach them.

I left the lunch and headed for what turned out to the highlight of the week – the Dairy UK engagement with Fonterra Chairman Henry van der Heyden. I’ve never seen Henry in better form. He has finally got his capital restructuring programme on an 80% vote with 90% support. So he’s now got funds to expand. His Government has done a free trade deal with China, opening up even greater access for him to this vast growing market (10% increase in GNP this year). And, with a smirk, he reflects that his country has water to sustain the growth in production. Not everyone can say that. His farmers know how to handle volatile markets, while we are still on a learning curve, and his controversial auction is going from strength to strength. We talked about Fonterra’s corporate structure and the dedicated governance development programme for those who aspire to be Fonterra farmer directors. This starts with a two hour interview, whose transcript is published on the website. And Sir Henry has a devastatingly simple way of communicating with every Fonterra producer on a weekly basis. His phone number is available to all, and how many calls per year does he get from his members? The average is around five! The Chairman and CEOs at our meeting turned green with envy.

Afterwards, the now celebrated New Zealand reception on the 18th floor of NZ House was entertaining and revealing. I panicked for a moment when I saw England’s number one football fan Ian Potter out on the terrace, alone, staring out into the abyss. Oh no, I thought. He wouldn’t. It’s only a game. So I rushed out, put a comforting arm around his shoulder, and tried to persuade him to sign a legacy form so that all his worldly goods would be passed across to the Tartan Army “Old Mother Hubbard” trophy cabinet fund. He smiled, and promptly turned the form into a paper aeroplane. Together we watched it, symbolically, like all England fans collectively, come slowly down to earth.

Afterwards we had an impromptu birthday party for Welshie from Defra. We went to the ‘Scottish’ bar called The Albannach in Trafalgar Square. Somebody asked me what ‘albannach’ meant. I said it was a Gaelic word which meant ‘same drinks as everywhere else but at four times the price’. Welshie impressed us all by chatting up the waiter in Italian. His reply to everything she said was ‘fantastico’. I have no idea what fantastico means, But I guessed from her expression that she wasn’t asking him for an extra dash of lime in her lager! Happy birthday, Welshie from all at Dairy UK. The card is in the post.

Finally, it’s now only a couple of weeks until Curly the owl and his pussy cat bride set off on the high seas over the horizon to Tierra Del Fuego and all points west. As you can image, I spend a lot of my time at industry hooleys telling people how Curly is. They are delighted when I tell them that the captain’s hat he now wears to the office is not because of his affection for the Village People. However at NZ House, I learned from a well-wisher that as part of his trip he is planning to seek sponsorship for some animal charities. I am happy to pass on this information via this column to all of you as a means of boosting the fund. Personally, the only animal sponsorship I get involved in is my season ticket for Rangers FC. Yes, it’s a hefty commitment, but it’s a cross that I am perennially willing to bear.

Friday, 9 July 2010

Think for a minute – where in the world are you at your happiest alone? For me, it could be O’Reilly’s bar across from The Bourse in Brussels on big match night. I watched the Netherlands slay Uruguay there on Tuesday night. Quite alone, except for 150,000 Dutchmen – every one dressed as though they’d come straight from a windmill. The size of the crowd presented logistical difficulties in getting to the bar. No problem, I simply went to the dull, quiet bar next door and brought the drinks back to O’Reilly’s (an old trick). Peter and Heidi, my new friends from Amsterdam, co-operated by keeping my seat all night.

Earlier in the day, I’d been to the Dairy Supply Chain Forum meeting in London - the first presided over by new Food Minister, Jim Paice. Jim had complicated things in advance by exercising a cull of attendees. Good idea, I thought. Start off with the industry, and then move on to the badgers! In principle, it was supposed to be one per organisation, but a quick scan round the room revealed that the farming organisations can’t count. I wondered how they’d got round Welshie from Defra who was scorekeeper and enforcer. It was she who drew my attention to the innovative approach adopted by my resourceful colleagues from our dairy levy body. Their CEO attended as the representative of DairyCo, and their Chairman attended on behalf of Dairy Co. The name plates were clearly different. Mind the gap or what? Can you spot the difference? Welshie could, and she takes the minutes. So that was that.

Jim seemed disappointed with the relatively subdued responses of the delegates. But it was his fault. Not only does he understand his portfolio, back to front, but you get the impression that he agrees with some of the points being made to him by the lobbyists. That’s really unsettling for a lobbyist. You don’t expect Ministers to say, you’re right. Where do you go then? In his short introductory remarks, he reeled off support for many of the points that the lobbyists were about to try and persuade him on. So of course it was subdued - no-one had anything left to say!

This week saw the planned exit of Alan Wiseman as Chairman of RWD Ltd. And so departs the man who, more than anyone else, put the capital “V” in vision for the British dairy industry. No mean achievement for someone who feels as comfortable at his US base in Las Vegas, Nevada, as he does tending his beloved cactus plants at home in Hamilton. You might think it odd that a man from Hamilton looks after cactus plants for a hobby, but it’s no real surprise to me. It hones your skills perfectly for dealing with prickly situations.

These skills I remember were essential in the early days of the Wiseman business. Alan spotted a wealth of talent in the socially deprived Glasgow housing schemes. Highly intelligent kids with no real chance of making it because of their circumstances were employed in the business, and he stuck with them through their “difficult” years until the payback came later as their natural talents were successfully deployed in the growth of the company. He did simple things to reinforce staff commitment. For example, he got the Wiseman share price published in the Scottish Daily Record, the paper the staff read, even if the city investors didn’t. Later, through a programme of acquiring small dairy businesses in Scotland, he not only took over the companies but he retained the entrepreneurs within them, and used their talents for the rapidly expanding company. Dairy Council Chairman, The Great Alexander, often revered as a celebrity in this column, is a classic example of this.

Alan was the leading instigator of one trip packaging for milk in the UK after an SDT trip to the States to look at how supermarkets worked. Look where that has ended up. And of course, when the MMB era was ending just as his company was becoming a plc, he was the first to recognise that the now incomprehensible policy implemented by the MMBs of charging the same price to buyers, irrespective of where your factory was, would rapidly disappear. So the new Wiseman factories went from the towns into the milk fields, and it’s worked like that ever since .

All of this would have potentially been lost to the industry if he’d followed his intended career path. He wanted to be a pilot. If he’d been two inches taller, he’d have achieved it. British Airways’ loss has, for 40 years, been the British dairy industry’s gain.

Friday, 2 July 2010

Dairy UK had the Government and a few friends round for supper this week at the Riverbank Park Plaza hotel in London. Swanky I’d call it. But it made a nice change for those of us more accustomed to eating in pubs offering two for one meal deals. It was a good do, and I’m told that from the body of the hall, the speakers had a halo effect around them against the backdrop of the sun setting over the River Thames. I liked this. It’s nice to be considered angelic.

Late in the evening, I received word that the DairyCo hockey XI were sponsoring a ‘kick on‘ drinks party on Thamesis, a floating bar moored on the river right across from the hotel. I hesitated. Should I put myself in the Cannon Ball firing line again? Oh, well perhaps just for one!

Thamesis is a bar designed for a haggis. She sits on the mudbank at a permanent 45 degree angle. Anyone with one leg shorter than the other has a clear advantage in getting to the bar first. It was there that I became re-acquainted for the second time in a month (and in a lifetime, actually) with a Corona beer. The barman had squashed some green fruit down the bottleneck. I didn’t recognize it, because as you know, Scotsmen don’t eat fruit. I turned to the Queen Bee, who was lurking behind me. She said if you finish that one, and then have another four, you’ll have met your five-a-day quota!

This was a hugely tempting prospect, but uppermost in my mind was the 4.30am start for my journey the next day to meet the sons of Llywelyn at Gelli Aur near Carmarthen. I know that this would be considered a lie-in for most of my farmer friends, but they’re made of stronger stuff. I headed for the exit via the poop deck where I met a posse of bravados from two of Britain’s biggest dairy companies. They were rapt in intellectual debate on the burning issues of the day. Does Steve Gerrard’s wife actually have a sister? Where do you put your England flag now they’re out? These are important issues and I have strong opinions on them. But I wasn’t consulted, so I left.

Gelli Aur is strategically located so that by the time anyone gets there, they’re completely knackered. So right away, the locals always have home advantage. Tim Bennett always wants to have meetings there. He lives two miles down the road! I love going to rural Wales. Everyone comes at you from left field. I met a wonderfully exuberant lady, who had undertaken a lifetime of innovative business ventures. I asked her why she’d become a cheesemaker. “Divorce”, she said. I re-engaged with the great Terrig Morgan, the Nelson Mandela of Welsh dairy farming, and still promoting the cause with undiminished  spirit and vigour. After the opening of the new Dairy Supply Chain Efficiencies project by Rural Affairs Minister Elin Jones, I was scheduled to give a presentation to the Welsh Strategy Group which Terrig chairs. I asked him how much time did he want for presentation and how much time for argument. He said “oh boy bach, we know what you’re going to say. Let’s just go straight in to the argument!” It’s my lifetime ambition to make Terrig happy. Jointly, we’ve made others happy in our day. In front of a slightly bewildered Elin Jones I said to him “ One day Terrig, the milk price is going to be so high that you’re gonna turn to me and say here Jim. Take some of this back. You need it more than me.” Terrig smiled and said “the only time I’d ever do that is if you wanted the money to buy my farm.”

As I listened to UK Food Minister Jim Paice in the posh Riverbank Park Plaza, and then in speaking to Elin Jones in the rustic canteen at Gelli Aur, I could detect striking similarities. Both are immensely popular in their roles. Both have the support of agriculture and the respect of all the stakeholders in the food industry. Both are placing TB at the centre of their political agendas. I sincerely hope that their determination on this single issue, with all its pitfalls, will not undermine their effectiveness in dealing with the food agenda in the round. In many ways, Jim’s task will be made much easier if Elin succeeds. She has started the process of badger culling first, but may be sidetracked on a technicality. I sincerely hope she succeeds.

Somehow, this and the other issue that dominated the discussion at the Welsh Strategy Group meeting viz large scale farming and in particular 24 hour housed production systems have moved right to the front of dairy’s public agenda. Our PR has to be spot on, and proactive.

As I returned from Wales, I took a call about Dairy UK’s conference at the Dairy Event in September. I reflected wistfully that by accident or design, even the RABDF has taken us out of the public gaze in the fields and meadows of Stoneleigh, and will be housing us inside for the duration in Birmingham. The trend is clear, and I think unstoppable.

Friday, 25 June 2010

This time I can honestly say that I was there. Yes, I was there at the Wimbledon marathon tennis match. Did you see them come off the court? Legs like jelly? I was exactly the same, except that my condition had been caused by having to pay for a punnet of strawberries and cream! I had been softened for the shock by having had to pay £4.50 for a small bottle of beer at the Queen’s Club Tournament two weeks’ earlier, but still I had palpitations. The only consolation, I suppose, is that at least the huge margin on the cream will go back to the hard-pressed dairy farmers, won’t it?

The Royal Highland Show is the doyenne of agricultural hoolies. All around me there is fun and laughter, serious debate on farming issues, sport and music, politicians and stockmen, livestock and milk maids, exhibitors and performers. All this, and I hadn’t even left the bar. At the Dairy UK Scotland Board meeting, we had to send out for more seats. Then we shared riveting information. The noble Maitland Mackie revealed that there was now more money in wind than in milk (Maitland: You are talking to the guy who wrote the book!). I spotted the Dairy Council Chairman, The Great Alexander (pictured), wandering around the milking sheds. Simultaneously in the background, the Alexander brothers were on the bandstand singing “Rear’d amang the heather. You can see he’s Scottish built. With the wig, wig, wig, wiggle, waggle o’, the kilt”. I thought this was a perfect match.

I wondered what the EU Agriculture Commissioner, Dacian Cioloş, was making of all of this. I’d spotted him at the airport and thought I might have had a chance of hitching a lift to the showground, but my credibility was blown when he saw my Easyjet boarding pass sticking out my pocket. I did, however, get the opportunity to share my views with him later at a select, invitation only seminar, where the Scottish Minister, Richard Lochhead, described the audience as “the cream of the Scottish industry”. Well, at Wimbledon prices, that must have meant there must have been about a hundred grand in the room.

I offered Mr Cioloş the view that he should look to Scotland for his model of post-2015 quota-free dairy supply chain relationships – all being implemented successfully without state intervention and creating real value in the farmers’ contract. But the other suggestion I made was that in managing the delicate balancing act for farmers in the CAP, ie as producers of food and providers of public goods, he was going too far in the latter direction. He rejected this of course, but as soon as I had spoken, as ever, the bee keepers, the bird watchers and the water diviners, all waded in with their relentless demands that Pillar One must be much more accountable to the environment. My impression was that in this regard, they were pushing against an open door, and that they were winning.

Later, in the relaxed confines of the NFUS stand, I was discussing the debate with some of the other “cream of the industry” friends and colleagues, who had been at the meeting. They said that they had heard Cioloş say food production first and the rest can follow after. But I didn’t hear that from either Cioloş or Paulo de Castro, the European Parliament Agriculture Committee Chairman, who had shared his platform. Whether he did or he didn’t, my message to the NFUS, and indeed to all of us, is that nowadays in public debates over the CAP, there are seven spokesmen for the birds and bees for every spokesman there is for food producers, and we should watch this carefully.

Finally, to the ladies of the UK dairy industry, this is the last weekend to buy your new posh frocks for the Dairy UK dinner next Wednesday, so go to it with vigour! My advice is to leave it until Sunday afternoon - around 3 o‘clock would be best. If you do that, I can assure you that your menfolk won’t bat an eyelid over the expense. You won’t even have to tell them that you’ve had the dress for weeks. But be very wary about trying it on, on Sunday night, for “an opinion”. If he’s still in the house and not out on the town drinking champagne, I’d leave it till the next day if I were you. Oh, and these nice Bratwurst sausages you bought for Monday’s breakfast? Give them to the cat. She’ll appreciate them more. It’s only a game, eh?

Friday, 18 June 2010

“So explain this to me again, sighed Mrs B. If I buy a pack of cheese and it’s got a red tractor on it that’s good?”
“Yes,” said I.
“But if it’s got a red traffic light on it, that’s bad?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“And if it’s got a green traffic light on it that’s good?” 
“Well yes, in principle....but a pack of cheese won’t have a green traffic light on it.” 
“What if it’s got a green tractor on it?” 
“There isn’t such a thing,” I said.
“Why not, if green means good?” 
“Er.... don’t be ridiculous, have you ever seen a green tractor?” 
“No, but I’m a consumer - I don’t go on to farms.”
“Right, well a tractor is a bit like a Ferrari.....red means good.”
“So does a green Ferrari mean bad?”
“Well, yes, it means less valuable. Not everything green is good... England goalkeepers, for example!”
Long pause.............. “Can you explain the offside rule to me again?”

But of course, traffic lights as a food labelling system are no more. They got a red card from the European Parliament this week, and that’s definitely bad. No problem there, though. It’s a rare victory for science over simplicity. If there’s a problem, it’s about how our valiant MEP’s came to make this decision and the 249 others they had to make in passing the Regulation on Food Information to Consumers. If you’d watched it, you’d have squirmed at the lack of understanding and knowledge in the room on the issues being debated. The experts watching on TV screens round Europe were baffled, and few people, least of all our beloved MEPs, knew what was going on. I can’t guarantee this, but I thought I heard a French MEP say that he hoped that the end of traffic lights would lead to the installation of more roundabouts. But at the end of it, we have the bones of a regulation with massive implications for the EU food industry.

There’s nothing new in this, of course. Every day, people take big decisions wearing blinkers. Not you or I, of course. We know everything about everything. It’s the others who are the problem. I’ve met some England supporters who think their team will win the World Cup. I’ve read press releases from Compassion in World Farming. But increasingly this situation seems to be less the exception and more the norm.

I mean, take one single issue out of the 249 that the MEPs had to agree on this bill – country of origin labelling (COOL). Swept through in the blink of an eye, but what exactly have they agreed to? At Dairy UK, we took five minutes to agree with mandatory COOL, but it’s taken us eight months to work out what it means and even now we don’t have the perfect solution.

The EP, the EU High Level Group and the NFU believe that it simply means the place of farming. But consider for a moment the unimaginable – raw milk being exported to a French cheese factory. Would you expect to see on the label of the cheese - Meilleur Camembert Anglais - Produit du Royaume Uni? No. So at the very least, the place of manufacture has to be included. I’m told that the place of farming already works well for the beef industry where ‘it fits’ conveniently. But I think that’s a lot of bullocks! Has it stopped the age old practice of reared cows in England and then sending them for a two week slaughter holiday to Scotland so that the Scotch beef premium can be secured? I doubt it. I mean, how do you tell the difference between a Scottish cow and an English cow? Does the Scottish one moo with a Scottish accent? If I was a Scottish cow, and I was chopped up and put in a steak and kidney pie, and labelled as English. I’d be well hacked off about it. I’d probably write to my MEP! So, I believe the COOL issue still has some way to run. Defra and Jim Paice are hot on this issue. I’m looking forward to the debate.

Finally, and remarkably, the following piece came through in my press clippings this morning. Referring to England fans in town for tonight’s bunfight it said “Some run their own businesses and are in South Africa for most, if not all, of the tournament. Others are multi-millionaires, and quite a few are ex-patriot Britons who've travelled here from all corners of the globe. But Ian Potter from Derbyshire and a group of England supporters wanted to do more than just eat, drink and make merry in Cape Town. They decided to take the ferry out to Robben Island, with thoughts not of football, but of history, racial oppression and injustice. Multi-millionaire or expat Briton? What do you think? Well, he’s certainly not an expat, so…

Friday, 11 June 2010

I see that the Prime Minister wants us all to hoist up England flags over our offices for the duration of the World Cup. I, of course, support that. At the very least, the England football team share my tailor. However at Dairy UK we are a consensus organisation. So I decided to consult the membership in the form of The Dairy Council Board meeting, which just happened to follow the PM’s statement. On that particular day, The Dairy Council Board consisted of three Scotsman, one Irish lady, one Welshman and one Iranian. They chose to decline the PM’s suggestion. What can I do? I am a mere servant of my pay masters. I would say no more than that I expect to be able to recover faster from the psychological damage of an early England exit than most of my colleagues.

Rather than being concerned about where people should be putting their England flags (although I agree it is an important issue), I think the PM might be a touch more concerned about the reaction of his backbench MPs to his new coalition’s ‘gung ho, blast them from the trenches’ style of Government. I met some of them at a function this week in the House of Commons and surprisingly found them in some trepidation over returning to their constituencies at the weekend. ‘Well, the economy is one thing, but what about the Food Standards Agency,’ I asked? So far, although the Government has done lots of things it didn’t include in its manifesto, it still hasn’t done anything about the FSA, which was in fact a pre-election commitment.

Despite this, there is now no doubt that the FSA will be chopped up a little, with responsibility for nutrition reverting back to the Department of Health. Dairy UK supports this and believes that it will strengthen both the FSA (with its outstanding performance on safety and science) and the Department of Health (which will take a more balanced, wider look at nutrition in the context of exercise and the other factors which contributes to human health and wellbeing). But the FSA insiders are moping, believing nutrition will lose importance in the plethora of issues that the Department of Health has to deal with. Cheer up lads. You may see this as a blow in the short term but in the medium and long term, I predict that your stock will rise ever further.

From the House of Commons, straight to Reaseheath in Cheshire for the royal opening of the Eden International Dairy Academy, the dairy industry’s new technical centre of excellence integrated within a revitalised agricultural college which is going from strength to strength. Gushing, but unquestionably deserved tributes were paid to the people who made this happen, viz the Eden Project Steering Group marshalled and driven with purpose by Jens Termansen of Arla and Julie Walker of RWD – the duo whose idea it was in the first place. As I commented at the launch this is a world class facility. If Carlsberg did technical centres........!

The regret was that Dairy UK’s man on the team developing this project, Edmund Proffitt, was missing. A renowned petrol head, he is on his annual pilgrimage (along with Malthusian Pete) visiting European motorcycle scrapyards looking for spare parts. This culminates each year at Le Mans which I understand is a convention of global greasemonkeys who meet in a car park in France and squirt WD40 over each other. I’ve told them they should try out a beach where they might come across things they’ve never seen before – but what do I know? But if you’re reading this on your Blackberry Ed, congratulations. You can be  proud of what you’ve achieved.

Finally it’s good to have Curly back in the office with us – albeit stuck together with pieces of sticking plaster. I can’t help but think, though, that his mind is focused on his next swash buckling adventure on the high seas. It’s the fact that he comes into the office in a pirates outfit that gives it away. Plus he keeps adjusting the air conditioning in the office so that he can practice staying vertical in a breeze. Ship ahoy, Curly. Keep your feet on dry land in the meantime, and don’t sail off over the horizon without a decent sized packet of Quells.

Friday, 4 June 2010

The regular reader of this column knows that it tries to take a light hearted look at serious contemporary issues affecting the dairy industry. Sometimes the activities of named individuals are portrayed humorously, but hopefully always with respect, and certainly always because they have done something positive to deserve it.

On this ongoing theme, step forward Albert Flynn, renowned Professor of Nutrition at Cork University in Ireland, and chair of the European Food Safety Authority’s adjudicating panel on health claims. In the latter roles he is the supreme arbiter of nutritional science as it relates to health claims on food. If you want to be able to claim that your product is capable of tickling my fancy, then it’s Albert you have to convince. He is the Celtic equivalent of the Man from Del Monté, and as he walked on to the stage at EFSA’s stakeholder forum in Parma this week, the 400 plus throng of disciples in the audience started a low virtual chant of “Here comes the judge”.

Albert had come to Parma to explain to the baying crowd why on 98 out of every 100 claims he’d looked at so far, his thumb had pointed downwards, and not up. Even Julius Caesar in the Coliseum would have been envious of a record like that. And in Parma, just like Rome, the baying crowd were looking for blood, and the lions were looking for dinner. But of course, Albert didn’t really need to explain his decisions to anyone, because frankly, none of this is Albert’s fault. In fact, he had as much right as anyone to be narked about the hopeless mess this EU Health Claims’ Regulation is now in. Indeed, he has more right to be narked than the army of consultants in the room who’d been paid stashes of lolly by food companies to get their claims through and had failed. Their tears were of the crocodile variety and their most pressing need now was for Albert to tell them how they could squeeze even more cash from their clients with re-submissions. And quite what Albert thinks of the EU Commission is anyone’s guess. They promised him a prestigious manageable task. Instead, he’s had to burn the midnight oil and travel back and forth from Cork to Parma relentlessly on Ryanair. And he’s still not even a quarter of the way through the job. I mean, how would you feel if you had to buy a season ticket for Ryanair? For sure, I know that if I were Albert’s wife, the last thing I’d be offering him for tea when he gets home  at night is a pizza!

No, the problem here lies squarely with the Commission, and so therefore does the solution. It was they who set up the process by which the adjudication rules were clear only after the claims and the supporting science had been submitted. It was they who framed the regulation to match the specificity of medicines and not foods. It was they who ‘merged’ the 44,000 claims down to 4,600, thereby delinking the claims and the science. And it was they who vastly understated the size of what is now a task which is suffocating the EFSA resources. How can they have done this? If you promise free beer tomorrow, how can you be surprised when people then turn up at the pubs?

Effectively therefore, the Commission’s mandate to Albert and his eminent team put them in a straightjacket, but in Parma he was gentleman enough to communicate this to the audience only by facial expression. He doesn’t want to be Julius Caesar, he wants to be the man from Del Monte, and he painstakingly spent the day advising how the remaining 3000 or so claims had the best chance of getting through. But he smiled little on the day. Not even when a man talking about the health benefits of fish inadvertently described himself as a “simple soul (sole)”. Nor when another contributor talking about how his food ingredient could be beneficial for hair said that he would only “give the highlights”! But I noticed a knowing smile creep across his face when the EFSA Director General, Catherine Geslain - Laneelle accidently misread her script and said that the EFSA role was “to protect the Commission”. She immediately corrected it to “protect consumers”. I wondered if Albert thought that she’d been right the first time.

Friday, 28 May 2010

I’ve been trachled all day today. However, not as much as the taxi driver taking me back to the office from a Crisis Management meeting in London. As we sat at traffic lights at Tottenham Court Road, he was venting strong opinions about a guy urinating against a wall in full public view. Only taxi drivers are allowed to do that by law, I learned. With his attention diverted, the cab drifted accidently forward, pushing over what’s called a Community Support Officer on her bike. A CSO is a kind of policeman in a yellow steward’s outfit. The inevitable stooshie which followed was shortened by my instantaneous four-word, five syllable, crisis management advice to the cabbie. By the time we reached Baker Street, he was genuinely appreciative of my advice, although still declaring to all and sundry that he couldn’t understand why a milkman was wearing a suit!

What was rankling with me was the fact that despite everything, there are still people amongst our ranks who seem to want to suppress the positive action being taken by the industry on Johne’s disease.  While I’d been in my Crisis Management meeting, I received an e-mail warning me about a newspaper article on Johne’s disease linking it again with Crohn’s disease in humans.  The story was actually a positive piece about progress in addressing Johne’s, but of course the context had been elaborated negatively by the headline writer (and by the scientists engaged in the research) for greater effect.  It must be as plain as a pikestaff that the positive work being done in our Johne’s action group to provide a Tool Kit of remedial measures for the industry to use is pretty much the complete answer to any criticism that we might face on this highly controversial and sensitive subject. We must press on with it.

The sunny spot of the week (apart from the news that Jose Mourinho is not going to pursue the managerial vacancy at Celtic because he’s not that bloody special – hee hee!!) came in Smith Square where Defra’s four Ministerial virgins fronted up to the industry’s stakeholders including me. The ability to approach each problem with a blank sheet of paper is for most of us a dream. For new, incoming Ministers it’s a reality so all the stakeholders try to ensure that their concerns are at the top of the new check lists. What strikes me about these meetings is that the room is always stacked full of birdwatchers, beekeepers, protection societies, trusts and people who include the term “bio” in every sentence. Food producers almost have to apologise for their attendance. I playfully teased the Minister about the need for a total supply chain approach to agricultural policy , but it was left to my mate and fellow jock, Happy Jack Matthews, CEO of Skills body Improve!, to force the message home. Food is by far the biggest manufacturing employer in the country, and policy decisions should be taken with that thought in mind. Happy Jack is absolutely right, protect the bees and you’ll have more bees - protect the food producers and you’ll have more jobs. Well done, Jacko, he’s my hero for the week.

And I want to finish this week with a fond message to all scientists working in the dairy industry. Three times this week I’ve heard scientists say that policy should be based on good, sound science. Lord Henley said it at the Ministerial hello on Tuesday, David Gregory said it at the IFST Lecture at  the Royal Society on Thursday and the Queen Bee and Professor Edski both said it at the Dairy UK Board meeting on Wednesday. Guys, it’s the other way round, I’m afraid. Try and see it from the point of view of the social scientists. The problem they have is that when they turn to the techies for answers, the science is almost always not there. It is astounding what little practical science there is in the world for policy makers to work with, but there is no shortage of respectable noted scientists who for a sniff of the filthy lucre, will take on, challenge and dispute, any hypothesis or principle put up by another equally noted and respected scientist, who has received a great dollop of spondulix to make the statement in the first place,. Look at the debate on TB, for example, or the debacle in EFSA on Health Claims and of course, of more relevance to us, the scientific debate with Government on fat. So, rightly or wrongly, policy drives science, because it’s the policy makers who pay for the science, so it’s they who drive it.

Having got that off my chest, I'm off to find a bar that isn't decked out with England flags. The nearest one may be in France. Phew.

It’s going to be a long hot summer!

Friday, 21 May 2010

Zippity doo dah!  Out of the blue, the sun is shining, and suddenly everyone is in holiday mood. Dress down Friday seems to have turned our office into something approaching a film set from an episode of “Wish You Were Here”. There is a proliferation of Bermuda shorts, Jesus sandles, and cropped tops! At Dairy UK all the men take their fashion lead from Fergus the Green. Today he is sporting a biodegradable, Fair Trade, tangerine tank top, made from reclaimed barracuda fish scales.  On the front there is an inscription, “Save the Galapagos Porcupine”. No-one really knows how much trouble the Galapagos porcupines are in, but if FTG thinks they need saving, we’re all behind him. We’ve all ordered a tangerine tank top for next Friday.

I’m in my office in a sober blue suit and moping. I’m in a suit because later today I’m meeting the Government at Smith Square and I just feel that someone has to stand out from the Man U and Chelsea tops so favoured by our public servants. Last night, I had to wear a tie, just to get through the door at the plush Caledonian Club in London. Unsurprisingly the chef’s special on the menu was “mince and tatties”. Help my boab! Can you imagine having to wear a tie to eat mince and tatties? When I was a boy we had mince and tatties every day, and my mother used to scream through from the kitchen, “Don’t forget to take your tie off before you start eating’”.

I’m moping because I’m looking at what’s happening to the euro. At Dairy UK we appear to take our forward currency advice from Betfred.com, so earlier in the year we paid all our annual euro bills in the belief that we were at the lowest value of the euro.  At that point, our advisors clearly thought that Greece was simply the name of a good film. None of the weakness in the euro helps anyone in this country, other than holidaymakers. And that is certainly true for our dairy industry. It makes imports to the UK more competitive, and ultimately, depending on how the governments in the eurozone countries reacts, it could engender deflation and reduced demand for our products.  But every cloud...............etc, and ours is that as we’ve observed, the impact of the recession on demand in the last two years has been arguably secondary to the impact of the variation global milk supply. Ironically then, it’s the fact that supply has been constrained by the weather that may see us ride this latest storm.

I stravaiged, as I do, periodically, into the inner workings of Assured Food Standards (AFS) this week. The Red Tractor organisation continues to defy economic gravity. It operates on the shoestring of a slip on shoe, yet gets its mark on £10 billion of retail goods, without even seriously troubling the food service sector or indeed Scotland.  It has now got funding from the AHDB that had to be squeezed out of them like a lemon. But every pound’s a prisoner, and zesty new Chairman, David Gregory, isn’t complaining.  He has smothered the organisation in a compost of zippy business plans, clipped no doubt from M & S, his former employers. At the moment, everyone’s gasping for air, but  in time, these will increase the yield even more. Unfortunately, the support of former funders the NFU, now comes in spirit rather than cash but it’s new CEO, Kevin Roberts, will want to look closely at the bigger picture. AFS, with its myriad of farm standards and its flagship logo, does an immense amount of good for British farming, and underpins British provenance. Despite the fact that it generates no market premiums, it has few critics and massive support beyond the farm gate, and there’s a good reason for that. The organisation’s finances are still fragile. In this life, you have to know when you’re on to a good thing. I’m sure that the farmers will soon wake up and smell the coffee?

Finally, the burden of my day was lightened this morning by a reminder that whatever, someone is having a harder time than you. So thanks to the South West Train driver who today offered the following passenger announcement, “Your delay this morning is caused by the line controller suffering from E & B syndrome: not knowing his elbow from his backside. I'll let you know any further information as soon as I'm given any."  He should become an MP.

Friday, 14 May 2010

Embarrassing or what? The whole god forsaken episode. Not necessarily the outcome though. It’s quite possible to run successful coalitions with people of widely diverging views. I’ve been doing it at Dairy UK for more than five years, and I’m only talking about the staff! The secret is remembering that along with the sunshine, there has to be a little rain sometimes.

Coalitions are the breeding grounds of reasonableness and compromise. The winners are those who can successfully exploit the power of silence. How many times have you triumphed in a mental exchange with someone and never uttered a word? Body language becomes a consummate skill. I once played in a football team where my partner in defense was, fair to say, not my bosom buddy. Worse, our policy on how to play the offside rule was crystal clear. Move out or stay back, depending on how you felt at the time! We never spoke a word to each other all season but we comfortably won the league. There were times when I wanted to ring his neck, and he mine, but silence kept the partnership working successfully together.

The power of silence was exercised adroitly this week by the Food Standards Agency. Purdah, in the absence of a new Government, prevented the FSA from dismissing an inaccurate story in the Daily Mail that they were about to consult on a fat tax for whole milk, cheese and butter. No problem with that, and we already knew this at Dairy UK, because we had had assurances from the FSA directly. If you believe in the phenomena of coincidence, you will not be alarmed by the fact that the authorities in Denmark, who we know are definitely intending to introduce a fat tax on dairy, decided the week before to extend it to meat. This, of course, is a blow to the newly formed Danish Agricultural and Food Council which has combined the industry lobbies in Denmark on meat and dairy. Its the kind of thing that the DAFC was created to prevent. It could, unfortunately, also be a blow to the other EU member states as well because, as we all know, everything from Denmark is spreadable. Well, we’re ok in the UK because the FSA have said so, haven’t they? And the new Nick and Dave coalition are looking at other ways of cutting the budget deficit, aren’t they? I mean, they’ve said so, haven’t they? And we know from the election process hat no-one ever changes their mind, don’t we? So we can forget about it for now, yes? Hmm. [ NB: private memo to the Queen Bee: sharpen your pencil and keep your wings well oiled. I can see the train a’ puffin’].

Over in the Province, there is much relief in the industry with the confirmation this week that former Northern Ireland MMB CEO, George Chambers’ now published history of Northern Ireland Dairy Council, covers more issues than just the selection over the years of the Ulster Dairy Queens. Now a lively octogenarian, George had decided to re-acquaint himself with some of these former beauties, presumably in the interests of thoroughness. Great credit has to go to the Dairy Council, the book’s sponsors, for recognising that the authority of the world's 7 great historians comes from detailed and elaborate research.....always assuming of course that the consequent lunch bills don’t threaten the financial viability of the whole project. The end result was revealed at the launch of the book in Belfast this week. Without doubt, it’s clear that the dairy queens [pictured above with George] did play a major role in fronting up the ambitions of the industry to the public. What is also clear is that in terms of articulacy and sharpness of wit, Dr George Chambers CBE, still remains one of the finest contributors to the dairy industry in the Province. Get yourself a copy of “Promoting Natural Goodness – the first 50 years of The Dairy Council in Northern Ireland” and see for yourself.

Finally, opinion is still sharply divided on my declared intention to buy a pleasure scooter this summer. My wife refuses to discuss the subject, while my children, more subtlety, have said that we’ll all go down to the scooter shop; they’ll take a picture of me sitting on one, and that’ll be the end of the subject. But I’ve had strong encouragement from Ramsay, Dairy UK’s external media adviser. No stranger to unconventional behavior himself. This is a man who as a release from the white hot pressures of political intrigue, started to learn to play the piano. The nearest analogy I can think of to that was Brian Moore doing ladies manicures. Anyway, he’s promised that if I go ahead he will buy me a full leather jacket emblazoned with the words, “Born to be Wild – East Kilbride Chapter” on the back. Ok, Ramsay. Make it a parka, and it’s a deal.

Friday, 7 May 2010

The main event for me in Brussels was my direct engagement with Jean Luc Demarty, Head of DG Agriculture at the European Commission. He spent 90 minutes answering questions on the High Level Experts’ Group, from a small group of global policy makers and economists, and me!  I saw this as my best chance of working out whether the HLEG was a force for good or a force for evil. The good could come from the Euro wide adoption of what seems to me to be a fundamental entitlement of every farmer in the post-quota European Union, i.e. a contract with his buyer – whether co-op or plc.   The evil would come if he legislated on/or over-prescribed contracts which stopped dairy companies investing in dairy farms as an integral part of the development of the elite parts of these businesses. Or if he prescribed contracts which disincentivised dairy companies paying farmers premiums for security of supply.

Demarty clearly wants to help dairy farmers. So he should, if you believe that his Commission has pulled the rug from under them by removing quotas – an act which in the absence of contracts will increase their vulnerability. So I feel he thinks he can recompense farmers with a gentle handed quasi legislative approach. And of course the added bonus for him is that if every farmer has a contract, he has a mechanism for controlling EU milk supplies, just like quotas did, but without the expense to the Commission of providing buffer stocks to manage the volatility.

Farmers of course don’t care about that. They simply want more money. But the lure for them in these proposals is controversial. The Commission believe that if every farmer has an unbudgeable contract which sets out in advance the price, volume and the minimum duration, then the industry’s customers ie the supermarkets will be unable to pressure prices downwards through their suppliers. The theory would apply irrespective of whether their suppliers were co-ops or plc dairies.  So, do you agree with that? You can see where the gain would come, but is it deliverable in a world where global commodity prices (which eventually determine all milk prices) are set by market forces involving big players not party to any new EU arrangements?

For me, the objective of an integrated approach where farmers, processors and where possible, customers, combine together in long-term deals to add value and drive competitiveness should shape the Commission’s policy. In my engagement with him Mr Demarty made it clear that that was his objective too. The question is how do you get there?

My EU colleagues in Brussels on Thursday were keen to solicit my views on how the outcome of the General Election would affect Europe. I told them, “Don’t worry. By tomorrow night everything will be clear!” Today’s coffee break discussion in the Dairy UK offices has therefore been how to put our situation now into music. Very soon the creative juices were flowing, and produced the following:

“Do you wanna be in my gang?” – Gary Glitter (Brown & Cameron to Clegg)

“Should I stay or should I go?” – The Clash (To the PM)

“You keep a knocking, but you can’t come in” – Fats Domino (for those who were locked out of the polling station at 10 o’clock)

“Road to Nowhere” – Talking Heads

“Smile like you mean it” – The Killers (for them all)

““Red sails in the sunset” – Nat King Cole

What a crazy world. My Australian visitors to the UK this week are just flabbergasted at what they’ve seen, but it’s to a media story today from New South Wales that I turn for a final observation. ‘An Australian army vehicle worth $74,000 has gone missing after being painted with camouflage materials’ Don’t you just wish.

Friday, 30 April 2010

My pen is forcing its way listlessly across the paper this morning. I am blaming last night’s Trehane Trust Dinner, which for me, in the dedicated line of duty, extended well into the small hours. I don’t know how many people pass through Waterloo station each day, but this morning I managed to collide with all of them.

The dinner, masterfully orchestrated as ever by Simon the Pieman Bates, had several highlights. Notably, the seemingly successful attempt by Welsh gargantuan and new NFU Dairy Board supremo Mansel Raymond, to turn water into wine. I don’t blame him for inadvertently topping up his wine glass with water; the two bottles were virtually identical! But when I observed him continue to consume the concoction with consummate pleasure, I made a mental note. In my dealings with this man in the future, always remember that he can perform miracles.

Of course, I had tried to use my extended session at The Chesterfield Hotel constructively. However, I failed completely in an attempt to persuade two of my colleagues to attend an important overseas meeting next week. Instead of me. So, I’ll have to do it myself which will mean travelling on Bank Holiday Monday.............again! I’m not sure how I’m going to explain this to Mrs B. I know she reads this blog. It’s the only way she can find out what I actually do. I think I’ll just let her find out that way. Eh? What do you think? Yes, I think that’s best. Why do the Continentals arrange meetings on British Bank Holiday weekends? I like to think it’s not deliberate but I’m not so sure.

To make matters worse, the first thing I’ve had to deal with today is one of those e-mails, copied to the world, complaining about not having received a paper for a meeting, and concluding with the remark, “Have I missed something?” I mean, that is one of the great unanswerable questions in life – have I missed something? How the hell would anyone ever know? I’m surprised that you don’t see that phrase on more tombstones!

For sure, no-one at the Trehane Dinner missed the message of young James Shanks Esq., a beguiling kilted Trehane farming Scholar who advised his audience that he expected in future to be making more money from selling renewable energy, than from farming. The difference, he said, would not just be thousands but potentially hundreds of thousands.

What confidence, coupled with ambition and real determination. And very timely because the industry has been reflecting this week on how our successful Milk Road Map will develop, and in particular how we can increase the use of renewable energy in our processes. At present, there is a very low utilisation but there is a growing awareness that the Government is determined to drive through a new approach. As an example, the DECC proposals for exorbitant new targets for the dairy sector under the Climate Change Agreement – which will be challenged by the industry – are clearly linked to the drive to increase the use of renewable sources of energy. So James Shanks’ positive outlook demonstrating that there will be a financial benefit on farms is good news and a positive message for farmers. I’m told that the ladies in the audience thought that he had good knees for the kilt as well!!

Finally, I revert again to the Trehane Dinner for this week’s most iconoclastic insight into the future. It came from another of my table companions, engaged professionally in public service. He wryly observed that “The biggest driver of the UK milk price this year will be how quickly the economy of Greece gets sorted”. When you think about it, which of us would disagree with that?

Friday, 23 April 2010

Happy St George’s day to everyone, although personally I’ve always felt that if the dragon had come from the Horse Shoe Bar in Glasgow instead of Mesopotamia, then it would have been a very different story. It‟s been a trying but pleasurable week for me in which my wife had her credit card stolen. I‟ve not reported it, because the burglar is spending less money than she does! 6 Along with all the country‟s milkmen I went to Haydock for the Doorstep Forum, and to find some clear air. At the very least it‟s a consolation that the volcanic ash that‟s over our heads is being refreshed on a daily basis from Iceland. That‟s much better than being suppressed by the mingin stuff that‟s been around since last week.

But what was going through your mind when you saw ex Food Standard Agency chair, now Civil Aviation Authority chair Dame Deirdre Hutton, come out on to the steps to tell the world that having closed British airspace, she was now re-opening it under broadly the same atmospheric conditions. I don‟t think they sell the Daily Telegraph as far North as Haydock, but I had imported a copy from the South. It was littered with the word „overreaction?‟ The FSA and the CAA are on the same street in London. For sure, I know they sell the Daily Telegraph there, I wonder if in the FSA they saw the word „overreaction‟ and linked it back to the fat, sugar and salt reduction policy thatDame Deirdre had instigated there. Over reaction? Who knows?

On the train back from Haydock I was flicking through DairyCo‟s excellent Intentions Survey and I found a big fact everyone else had missed. It seems that only 1% of dairy farmers consider Johne‟s Disease as a priority. I can tell you lads, that 100% of processors, vets and welfare advisors take a very different view. The next meeting of Dairy UK‟s Johne‟s Disease Action Team is next week. The Intentions Survey shows how important it is that they make rapid progress.

Later in the week I went to the brewing industry lunch organised by the excellent trade association the BFBI. What‟s the connection between brewing and milk? Lots of technology actually. Dairy UK is in fact holding a joint seminar with the BFBI on refrigeration in June. But it‟s troubled times for the brewers. The pubs are emptying while publicans are still getting blamed for the binge drinking, even though their customers are now what is called „front loading‟ on cheaper supermarket beers etc at home, before they go to the pub. Agriculture, I learn, is playing a part in their demise. I‟m told that because farming is a lonely occupation, farmers have always traditionally gone to pubs on Fridays to meet people and to find wives. But the emergence of texting has changed all this and they don‟t go to the pub now. I asked my pubs advisor at the lunch how they then now find wives? “They‟ve gone back to the old ways “, he said. “They put an advert in the paper saying wife wanted - Must have tractor. Send photo of the tractor”. Nope, you cant beat the oldies.

Finally, my grateful thanks this week go to Fergus the Green for joining me in the middle of the night to operate the autocue for a live videolink presentation I gave to the Dairy Co-operative Leaders Forum for New Zealand and Australia in Melbourne. The pace of my presentation was totally dependent on Fergus‟s itching finger and he chose the occasion to have some really good fun. So we lurched back and forward from The March of The Hebrew Slaves to The Charge of The Light Brigade, and ended in a breathless crescendo that would not have embarrassed the Lone Ranger. Fergus offered as an explanation, the fact that we‟d renamed him „Skippy‟ for the evening (true!) and he was just trying to play to character. But I think really he‟s just missing his office soul mate Curly (see page 4). Well as we all know, there‟s always another day, and I‟ve offered to do the autocue for his next presentation. So far, he‟s declined. Hey ho! Onward Christian soldiers.

Friday, 16 April 2010

I was on about the last plane out of Heathrow to Brussels yesterday as the Icelandic volcanic ash began to occupy the air space above the UK. The ash was no problem for me; I’m used to working in a total fog, and I was pleased that in an instant the economics of the Scottish car wash industry were transformed.

On the plane I glanced through the initial press cuttings from our new Make Mine Milk campaign. It’s clear that everyone likes Pixie a lott. However, I noticed that some farmers have queried whether Gordon Ramsay is right for the image of milk. Hmmmm! Just as well the ad agency didn’t go for the slogan, “Make Mine F’n Milk”, then wasn’t it? Rightly or wrongly, bad boys create more interest and awareness than soft cuddly bunnies. Look at what Gwyn has done for the NFU. And of course, the start of the ad campaign is all about creating awareness. But you know, images are created by spin doctors; they may or may not reflect the real person. Interestingly, on the day of our launch I read that Gordon had sacked his long-standing PR company because he was unhappy with his bad image in the UK. So soon, Gordon might become an f’n angel. This will appease our concerned farmers but I wonder if it’ll improve his marketability? Don’t do it, Gordon. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

I was going to tell you now about an exciting new development on school milk but there’s been a delay and we have to stay schtumm for the time being. The Queen Bee, who’s involved, has been exasperated by the delay. “It’s because of something called ‘purdah’. What’s ‘purdah’?” she said. “Well it’s a situation where people who have something to hide have a good excuse for not answering any questions,” I told her. “You must have heard of the expression, ‘getting away with purdah”. “Shouldn’t that be murdah?” she asked. “Yes, that’s right. What did I say?” I replied.

Hopefully more on school milk soon, but instead what I can tell you is that we are now going to withdraw the health claims on dairy submitted by Defra on our behalf to the European Food Safety Authority. To be more precise, we are going to withdraw the food claims (eg dairy and dental health) submitted under Article 13.1 of the regulation, where the flawed adjudication process almost by definition makes them impossible to accept. We shall re-submit them under Article 13.5 of the regulation in a different format where the process is clearer and gives us a better chance of success. You might have observed yesterday that the French company, Danone, did the same thing with their product Actimel.

We do this with lots of regret but it’s in our best long-term interests as an industry. We believe that other dairy industries elsewhere in the EU will do as we are doing, and we are working now to deliver this. We’ll let you know what happens. However, for me it just goes to illustrate again the veracity of a business principle that I’ve been applying all my working life – the shortest distance between two points is seldom a straight line.

Huge posters of Pixie and Gordon are now hanging from the ceiling in our office. I won the toss to decide which picture faces who in the office so obviously I now sit and stare at Pixie all day while Jess, our receptionist, who sits across from me in the office, is now looking at Gordon. I could see she was distressed about this. “He’s looking at me all day”, she said. “I find him scary.” “What? Scarier than looking at me all day?” I said. Her lips moved but no words came out. Eventually she spluttered out the following, “Well when you put it like that, I suppose the corners of his mouth do curl up quite appealingly.” It just goes to show that in the modern world of volcanic eruptions, everything is relative.

Friday, 9 April, 2010

Do you remember the song Misty? Well in the absence of Johnny Mathis, it was Malthusian Pete who spelled out the Dairy UK position at the Defra stakeholders meeting on farmer contracts this week. So when he spoke, did a thousand violins begin to play?

Defra had engaged the English Farming and Food Partnership (EFFP) to survey stakeholders on milk contracts. To no-one’s surprise, there is a wide consensus on virtually everything, except for one point. Should a farmer be allowed to break his contract when there’s a price change? The farmers’ view expressed by the NFU is ‘yes’.

As you know, my personal mantra is always to ‘give every man thine ear, but few thy voice’. So I make only one comment on this. Processors pay premiums for security of supply. In a post quota regime, why would processors pay premiums for no security of supply? They pay those premiums because they can get specific business advantages from securing supply from specific groups of producers. This segregates the milk pool and stops milk being a single undifferentiated commodity, which is the source of all the economic problems farmers face in the supply chain. So, who would suffer most if purchasers couldn’t securely build value through differentiating raw milk? Oh, and while I’m at it, perhaps just a short second comment. The farm contracts in the UK are more advanced in farmers interests than in any other deregulated market in the world. If anyone can prove me wrong, I’m here to listen.

Next week sees the launch in the UK of the £7.5m Make Mine Milk focused marketing campaign, initially starring bad, bad boy Gordon Ramsay, and the sweet little angel of mercy, songbird, Pixie Lott. This is a cause for celebration, because it registers another tick in the box of characteristics which you expect from properly functioning markets. It is a direct investment by British dairy processors and the European Commission, but it will benefit everyone. It will underpin the health and wellness value of milk, and this will be so important in the political climate ahead of us. But will it also deliver a pot of gold at the end of this three year rainbow? Well the industry marketers have travelled to the rainbow’s end to have a look, and the gold is definitely there. All that’s needed is their creative skill and judgement to unlock the crystal maze. Go to it guys, we’re all behind you.

Finally, the question has to be asked, is Paolo Nutini now the greatest living Scotsman? And on that basis alone, should he be fronting the Make Mine Milk campaign further down the line? As I watched him perform last night at the Royal Albert Hall, I thought that his naturally curled up body and almost twisted upside down posture would look perfect on the T-panel on a double-decker bus. And these pointed elfin will o’ the wisp feet! Surely he’d be just as good as Pixie at delivering the ‘elf’ message. As you watch him perform, you are regularly struck by the thought that this is a man, well familiar with the white stuff. Coincidentally, I happened to be at the RAH with the Great Alexander, who is also of course the leader of the Make Mine Milk campaign orchestra. I turned to share my thoughts with him, only to find him doubled over in a Nutiniesqe posture, performing at the top of his voice (and of his range) “Just give me some Candy...before I go”. I decided to save my opinions for the next committee meeting. Some guys will do anything for a bag of sweeties!

Thursday, 1 April 2010

Ah well, spring is here and we’re all busy filling up our nut sacks so that the feathered friends who visit our gardens don’t go hungry. We used to have a lovely pair of greenfinches visit our garden in Surrey until our cat mistook them for Celtic supporters and ate them! It’s all part of life’s rich tapestry, I suppose.

Of course, as every Scotsman knows, as soon as you see a lamb in the field, you dive for your duffle coat, because you know that the “lambing snow” is not far off. So it was then that relatives of mine returning to the Isle of Lewis for Easter spent an extended night on a train from Edinburgh to Inverness which got stuck in a snowdrift and had to be rescued. As you know, my approach to life is always ‘glass half full’, so I can positively assure them that they won’t get stuck on a train on their return next week... because there won’t be any trains next week!

As it happens civil disruption is uppermost in the minds of all Dairy UK staff today on the eve of Good Friday. For 24 hours we have had no e-mail, internet or telephone systems in the office – struck into somnolence along with most of North London – by a fire at the BT connection office at Paddington. For some this is a curse, for others, a blessing. Fergus the Green keeps looking at his Blackberry, praying that it’ll jump into action. For me, it’s given me some time to consider the chocolate Easter bunny sitting in front of me on my desk. I’m about to sink my teeth into its rear end.

I’m never very sure about which days around Easter you are supposed to eat your chocolate egg. However, my urgency is driven by the fact that the Queen Bee is a chocolate fanatic who has given up eating chocolate for Lent. So I want to make significant inroads into my bunny before she re-enters the field. I notice from the packing that my chocolate bunny is called Molly and she has a Union Jack on her side. I also notice that she is made from “our exclusive British extra chocolately milk chocolate”, so clearly Molly is a British bunny. Now I happen to know for reasons which will become clear, that the laws on labelling allow you to claim a country of origin on your packaging as long as you are not misleading consumers if the main ingredient of the product is from somewhere else. So, what’s the main ingredient of a chocolate bunny? Chocolate? And what’s the main ingredient of chocolate? Cocoa beans? So presumably Molly has been made from the fruit of the vast cocoa plantations in Dorset and Somersetshire?

Country of origin labelling has become everybody’s cause célèbre. Politicians, farmers, trade associations everywhere (including Dairy UK) have it in their political manifestos. And it’s all based on provenance. The research from the Food Standards Agency in the UK says that national provenance is not a driver of consumption. The research conducted by everyone else says it is. So, from a marketing point of view, UK food companies want to show UK consumers that they produce wonderful products, and that they come from their patch! That is of course until they want to market their products to say French consumers. In this case it’s not because their products are from the UK, this time it’s because they’re simply wonderful.

Defining country of origin is a minefield. How do you do it? Is it right that products from the Republic of Ireland can be described as from the British Isles? Or that Dutch milk turned into cheese in Belgium and aged in France can be called French cheese? What is the main ingredient of a pizza? Have you ever seen a pizza described as, say, Welsh? Farmers say that it should be the country where the animals are reared, but you can’t even begin to imagine the complications of that. Most would agree that the point of manufacture, not the point of packaging is a good start. But why should it not be the point of packaging? Presumably one of the reasons that consumers value provenance is because by consuming “local” products they are supporting local jobs, and local packaging provides local jobs – yes?

In Dairy UK, we are in the middle of our analysis of this subject, because we believe in the concept, and we are proud of our products. However it may take us a little while. I’m off to Amsterdam at the weekend. I’ll be checking every mouse on every stair to see where their clogs come from. I bet they all carry a Dutch flag, and I bet also that they’re all produced in China.

Meanwhile, I’ve stripped Molly’s packaging and I discover that she’s not a bunny, she’s actually a cow. That’s a bit of a surprise but not a problem. The greater need is to get moving ahead of the Queen Bee. Hmm, I think I’ll start with the rump!!

Friday, 26 March 2010

I’m writing this in the vast amphitheatre of the EU Council's Charlemagne building in Brussels, where the output of the Commission’s High Level Group on Dairy is being conveyed to the European industry at a conference entitled What Future for Milk? Around 500 people will be in the room when the meeting begins shortly. The possible exception will be our venerable UK quota agent, Harry. Last night at dinner I was privileged to be able to give Harry’s wife advice on where to find the best prices for Prada handbags in Brussels’. Harry is so worried about this that he may give the conference a miss.

I’ve been mulling around talking to my European colleagues trying to find out if this event is real or just political window dressing. All of us have been examining the issues for months but everyone is still in the dark. A Dutch colleague summed it up best. “We are still confused,” he said, “albeit it at a higher level.”

Some light relief is afforded as three Irish colleagues move in next to me. They realise too late that they’ve sat next to a Scotsman and they stoically prepare themselves for 10 minutes of unrelenting wind up about rugby. They take it in the neck and vanish for a coffee at the first possible opportunity. The room is filling up. I’m struck by the number of foreign delegates wearing Proud of Dairy badges. I reflect that the badge is much more popular and valued outside the UK than inside; I wonder why. The great Torsten Hemme, of the IFCN advances. “I want more Proud of Dairy badges, Jim,” he says. “I want more IFCN reports Torsten,” I reply. We do a deal. Four IFCN reports for one Proud of Dairy badge. I resolve to go back to negotiation school.

I’m trying to push ahead with this blog but people keep coming up to me. A leading British retailer stops for a chat and we discuss Nocton. “No problem for us,” he says, “as long as they hit the right animal welfare notes.” Phew, that’s a relief, I think. Several overseas colleagues talk to me about comments I’ve made at the Commission’s Dairy Consultative meeting the previous day on health claims. I still believe that people don’t realise the potential seriousness of this issue for the future integrity of dairy products – including within the EDA. It’s clear that people were impressed by my comments, not so much by what I said, but that I managed to use the words epidemiological and pharmacological in the same sentence without getting my tongue stuck to the microphone.

New Farm Commissioner, Dacian Cioloş, opens the meeting and sets the tone. In doing so reveals his hand. “We’re not changing direction, quotas are still going and farmers need to get used to operating in free markets. However, we need to improve the markets by improving the bargaining power of farmers. We must also respect competition policy and I’m going to talk to the Competition Commissioner about what’s possible. Possibly, derogations for dairy farmers; possibly a greater role for producer organisations, possibly with larger shares. I mean it and I won’t wait for the CAP Reform process to deliver. I’ll tell you what I’ve decided in June.”

The economists roll out positive demand and market projections for the future. The Commission economist says fewer and fewer countries now rely on quotas for production decisions and quota values are falling everywhere. There’s a commotion beside me. It’s Harry. He’s banging his head on the table. I wonder if his wife has bought her new Prada handbag yet. The chat round the coffee machine is that the economists are buying into optimism on too little information.

As the details of the consensus of the HLG so far are drip fed out to the Assembly, I sense that the appreciation amongst the audience that supply arrangements could change as a result of this exercise, increases. In the crucial areas of contracts and the ability of producers to have greater power in the determination of milk prices, things could change. Of course, it’s early days and the HLG is not the EU Council of Ministers, but even on issues such as should price negotiating producer organisations be outside competition law, it’s clear that there is a dominant wave of member state opinion in favour.

As I look into Harry’s eyes, I see new opportunities for middle men in the new scenario float across his mind. I stay silent. I don’t want to disillusion him. After all, in about two hours, he’s about to find out how badly his bank balance has been depleted.

Friday, 19 March 2010

For me, St Patrick’s Day is one of the world’s greatest public celebrations. And when they give out vouchers for free pints of Guinness at Paddington station in the morning, how can anyone not possibly join in?

I’m writing this in Dawson Street in Dublin on Friday afternoon, where St Patrick’s Day is still continuing unabated. I’ve just tripped over a guy who’s been regaling me with his own personal collection of Irish proverbs. “When you think you’re at the bottom”, he said, “you can still have a hell of a long way to fall.” Hmm, I thought. Good advice for Martin Johnson.

Now, as we all know, when Irish eyes are smiling, all the world is bright and gay. However, Dawson Street is where all the men go while their wives are shopping in nearby Grafton Street, so there are always a few worried expressions around. But I detect a different atmosphere here, this time. The shops are quieter, the taxi queues are shorter, and the eyes are displaying only around 35 of their normal 40 shades of green. Indeed I’m reminded a little of when we used to come here before Ireland was a member of the EU, when the young people used to cluster round you hoping to find contacts which might lead to jobs in the UK. It’s nothing like as bad as that now, but I sense that this city has been hit by the recession much more than most.

I spent the real St Patrick’s Day at the Agra Europe Outlook 2010 conference in London. There were no Irish there, they were all at Cheltenham, but I still learned a lot. I learned about the almost straight correlation between the decline in beef consumption and the timing of the various disease scares that have hit this industry in the last 10 years. I shifted uncomfortably at that. I also learned that in terms of feeding the world in future, 23% of the responsibility would fall to the developed world and 77% of it would rest with the developing world (FAO). The good news is that in the developing world, the technology exists now to generate the necessary yield improvements to do it. The bad news is that they have to implement the technology.

I did the teaching on the dairy sector. But I’m always conscious when I talk to an audience of agricultural generalists that they find the dairy regime and its pricing mechanism unbelievably complicated. Perhaps that’s why we get so much irrational comment about dairy in the media. We don’t explain clearly enough how it works. However, mindful that the entire EU dairy apparatchik world will be in Brussels next Friday (26 March) to hear the outcome of the High Level Experts Group thinking so far, I focused on that in as simple terms as possible. I explained that the Commission, prompted by the French Government, had got cold feet about surrendering the EU dairy industry to a free market without quotas and had hit on the scam of getting the dairy companies through their contracts with farmers to effectively balance milk supplies to the market. Sounds sensible, and cheap too for the Commission, what with the Budget coming up for review and all that. So, we may well see guidance on contracts emerging as an outcome.

No real problem with that as long as it’s restricted to making sure that a contract exists (they don’t in many EU countries) and the general areas the contract should cover. Anything further such as interfering with the contract terms, how long a time a price should apply for example, then the potential for disaster opens up. I sense that some EU farmer organisations are hoping that the Commission will recommend a more specific contract prescription. But I don’t think that’s the intention. No-one would thank them for prescribing contracts that would see dairy farmers lose their supply premiums. Of course Europe’s approach to dairy and competition law in the High Level Experts Group is quite another thing. We’ll find out more about the intentions there next Friday.

Coincidentally, while I was addressing the audience on the subject of milk quotas, I was aware that there was a horse running at Cheltenham called “Quantitative Easing”. Honestly. I checked to see if the jockey was called Mariann Fischer Boel, but it wasn’t. In the same race, (the 4 o’clock), another horse called “Wishful Thinking” looked a better bet to me. In the event, both lost but in the Cheltenham Gold Cup this afternoon Imperial Commander didn’t, and I had a small investment on that. So the drinks are now on me. I’m in the Madhatter’s Café. Come and join me. I suppose I’ll be here all night.

Friday, 12 March 2010

I’m not going to go on about Nocton this week ....... not much that is.  Next week is the local planning meeting. I hear that it’s going to be televised by the BBC’s Countryfile programme. So, I expect to see Julia Bradbury wearing her Dairy Fairy outfit she donned for the Smile for Dairy campaign. One wave of her magic wand and everything will be alright. She should wave her magic wand over Labour MP David Drew as well. This week he tabled a Parliamentary Question to Hilary Benn suggesting that farms should have a maximum number of milking cows by law. Come on, David, how much inefficiency do you want to build into the British farming system? Haven’t you heard that soon our dairy farmers are going to be in an even more liberalised market where competitiveness will be vital. They have to take investment decisions now to prepare for that. As an MP, you don’t need to intervene, especially if you want to put a stranglehold on growth.    The market will decide what forms of farming are acceptable to consumers. We just need to make sure that the market has the true story.

I’m speaking at the big hoi polloi Agra Informa Outlook Conference in London next week. On this occasion, I’ll be the voice of the whole EU dairy industry in giving the form report on our sector.  Since there will be a lot of non-Scottish speakers there, I’ll have to practice my best Kelvinside posh accent over the weekend and try to remember not to say things like, Och and Aye. Over the years I’ve had a good relationship with Agra Informa and its father Agra Europe – I pay them stacks of money each year, and they print my comments with the words in the order that I actually say them.  That’s what you call trust. The AI editor, Chris Horseman, is a man apart. He’ll be chairing my session. He said to me, “Jim, do you believe in free speech?”  I said, “of course”. He said, “Good, that’ll take care of your fee then!”.  This conference has all the big powerful EU decision makers on the platform, including Lars Hoelgaard from the European Commission, Palo de Castro MEP from the European Parliament, and Anastassios Haniotis, DG Agriculture and Rural Development, from the Commission. All legends in their own lifetime........and if you are in the UK dairy industry, have you heard of any of them?  I’ll bet you haven’t.  And yet, these people are making decisions on a daily basis (ok, ok, that’s stretching it a bit) that affect the future profitability of our industry – and they have done for years. So, if you as a dairy farmer, say, are not happy with your lot, those people will have had much to do with it. But I doubt if I’ll know more than a handful of people in the audience – which ever more significantly, will be full of people who make financial judgements about our industry, including city analysts and fund managers. Wake up to Europe is my message to you. It’s still the place that determines the infrastructure for our industry, and to that extent, it can enlarge or contract margins. At the conference, my doctrine for the future will be unchanged: rationalise – research – brand. If there’s anything else you want me to say, let me know before Wednesday.

I’m breaking the habit of a lifetime by writing this blog on a Thursday, so if anything has happened on Friday, I apologise for not including it. I’m off to Scotland on Friday for the Calcutta Cup – where I hope after the game to be in a position to offer psychological help and guidance to wee Mattie from Defra, that is if they let him through Passport Control at the Scottish border. I wonder if I’m getting too old for rugby weekends. The “good taste” editor of this blog, Simon the Pieman Bates, gave up years ago, and as an England fan, he got to see the odd victory.   And of course, the wives of my circle of friends now refuse to join us.  For some reason they find being squashed like lemons in bars for six hours unpleasant. They say controversial things like “Let’s find a restaurant”. So, my friends and I have found a new solution. We take our daughters to the games instead of our wives. They are all twenty something and I find at that time of life, they are remarkably free from the conventions and behavioural patterns that in other situations we find so charming and appealing in their mothers.  So, here we go again, as they say. In the famous words of the sadly departed but never forgotten Elvis “The Pelvis” Presley, “Don’t push me ... I’m a grease monkey that won’t slide so easily”. [Editor’s comment: He’s right you know, Elvis did come out with this memorable line in the 1962 movie Kid Galahad, a remake of the 1937 drama of the same name starring Edward G Robinson and Humphrey Bogart]

Friday, 5 March 2010

Yip, it’s been a rough old week. You get them, don’t you? Nothing works. Everybody’s wrong. You’re late for everything. No-one listens. No windows get opened and others get closed. At the low point of my week, I looked in the mirror and I’m sure I saw Tony Mowbray looking back at me. Jings! What a fright I got. When you have weeks like that, the solution is always to buy new shoes. That always makes you feel better. I didn’t. I bought a shirt.

When I opened it, I discovered it had no top pocket. For me, and all men, that’s a hanging offence. Not so long ago in Australia, there was civil unrest when the shirt makers went from two top pockets to one. They eventually had to climb down. Worse still, the shirt had three buttons on each cuff. Three flipping buttons I ask you! It’s difficult enough for me in the morning to get any buttons into the right button holes at all, never mind three buttons in each cuff. I’ve had to arrange to tell Fiona about the days that I’m going to wear that shirt so she knows I’ll be on the late train.

It was a rough old week for the innovators of Nocton Dairies too, except that they didn’t deserve it. For me, a proposal to spend £40m on a farm should give everyone a confidence boosting shot in the arm, but instead it put the spotlight on the animal welfare practices of the whole industry. Nowadays, it appears that it’s not enough to satisfy the technical experts when you choose to introduce innovative production techniques. You have to convince The Daily Mail as well, and, regrettably from our point of view, we started from a position of defence, as the animal rights campaigners were presented with a hook, from which to hang us out to dry. So, when the extensive media skirmishes took place, we had to field the equivalent of John Terry, albeit armed with a superb retinue of answers, but the animal rights campaigners had Wayne Rooney posing the questions. If you were an investigative journalist, whose performance would you be most interested in?

The issue is not about Nocton. It goes way beyond that. It’s about the industry’s ability to convince the general public, via The Daily Mail or whatever, to accept technological developments in farm production techniques. Our future competitiveness is going to depend on our ability to do this, because consumer resistance to developments such as genetic modification in other countries is significantly less than in ours. So, consumer education is an absolute priority, and this will take resource. Because, as we all know in the industry, there has to be more to come in terms of the way milk is produced, and the kind of milk which is produced in the future. There are simply some aspects of farm production which need more explaining to consumers than others. And that responsibility must rest with dairy companies as much as with farmers. It’s the reaction of their customers after all which counts most. Zero grazing is one issue; producing milk without grass is another. We know that world-class animal welfare standards are not prejudiced by these systems but we all have to work harder to convince the public.

The next pressure will come at the Nocton planning meeting; beware the Ides of March is my message (well, it’s not my original message, it’s been used by bloggers in the past). By then I’ll have bought some new shoes. This is a Journey and we “just can’t stop believin’”.

Finally, it was good to see Farm Minister Jim Fitzpatrick wearing his Proud of Dairy badge at the Dairy Supply Chain Forum meeting in London this week. Jim’s snappy suits certainly make him the best dressed Farm Minister we’ve had for years, but he recognises, like so many, that there is no suit ever produced that cannot be significantly enhanced with a Proud of Dairy badge on the lapel. Jim tells me that his secretary keeps a stock of them in his drawer in case he forgets to change his badge when he changes his suit. I’m just impressed that he’s got more than one suit. This weekend, a major global dairy company is having an “away day” for their senior executives. All of them will be wearing Proud of Dairy badges, supplied at their request by Dairy UK. However, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and one of my Scottish colleagues recently described the badge to me as a “black splodge”. This week, for some reason, he went to Wembley to see the football. He had to sit and politely watch England thrash Egypt. That’s what I call divine retribution.

Friday, 26 February 2010

There was a time when feeding the world took just five loaves and two fish. Now we depend on farmers. Illustrating this point, the bowl of potatoes that came around at the NFU conference dinner this week only got two thirds of the way round the table before it was empty. Poor Ken Boyns, unfortunately positioned at the wrong end of the table, got the food security message right between the eyes. I glanced over at the “well fed” side of the table. Predictably, large quantities of potatoes were uneaten. So in the microcosm of the Hilton Metropole Hotel in Birmingham, the global dilemmas of food waste and food security were neatly encapsulated.

The NFU conference has completely changed its personality. We used to listen to some of the finest firebrands in the country, bellowing rhetoric about unfairness and defiance. The only prop involved was a soap box, and politicians and people like me had the fear of death put into them. Now it’s like spending a couple of days in a health spa. The Queen Bee gets a rougher ride having her monthly facial. These days, we listen to professors and academics with serious and worried expressions on their faces, talking about things like sustainable biomass and carbon sequestration and abatement potential. And yet, at the same time, farmers fear the drift of financial support in the EU from Pillar One to Pillar Two. Heavens above, guys, if you want to put the kybosh on Pillar Two, stop taking about it so much.

I think the politicians who inhabit the conference platform panels now view it as a relaxing afternoon off. One session was invigilated by the broadcaster, Edward Stourton. Charm, wit and sophistication ooze from this man, but what we really needed was a demented Rottweiler on ecstasy. Food Minister Jim Fitzpatrick even walked off half way through, albeit with a pre-notified excuse. I couldn’t quite hear what it was - something to do with a manicure appointment, but I could have been wrong. Before he left, he told the audience that he wouldn’t cull badgers; that he would continue to fight relentlessly; and that he would pursue a liberalisation and environmentally-driven agenda; less the Germans, French and Dutch would continue to isolate him, he had some mates in Eastern Europe that he would muster. Everyone smiled in acceptance, and clapped him off the stage. Crivens, in the old days, they would have manacled him to the chair, while they chewed him up and spat him out in bits.

Great credit has to go to Shadow Tory Farm Minister, James Paice, for trying to re-establish the focus. James often appears doleful and sanguine, but he unquestionably understands farming as well as any Westminster MP. He repeatedly told the conference that the countryside is for producing food – get your attention on that first. His view was supported by Professor Chris Pollock, a bearded Welsh-based intellectual, with an acerbic wit. With masterful control of the pause, he gripped the audience with a prophetic warning: “go too green, too fast and you won’t have enough land to produce the food”. Too right mate, and so say all of us.

Will the election of Gwyn Jones to the NFU front line change the style and culture of the organisation? HQ will say no. But this column says you can bet your bottom dollar it will. Gwyn only got the junior position, but that won’t make a whit of a difference to him. I predict that before long, the meetings of the NFU office bearers will be virtually indistinguishable from a performance by the Beastie Boys, and the economists and soothsayers, like young Hindy, will be back up on the conference platforms, doling out spoonfuls of statistical invective to feed the fervour of the delegates on the floor. And not before time, in my view. I can hardly wait.

As I pen this blog, the Queen Bee and her colleagues all over the EU are poring over the second tranche of Health Claims adjudications form the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA). At first glance, there looks to be nothing for or against dairy in this latest batch, so again, we breathe a sigh of relief. But be assured, our day will come. In the latest batch, 408 potential claims were rejected and only eight accepted, and again, the main reason for objection was that the scientific evidence didn’t sufficiently characterise the product. For me, this is a clear manifestation of the flaws in the process adopted by EFSA to evaluate the science (combining more than 44,000 claims down to around 4,000 to make the process easier to manage). Surely someone at the European Commission will wake up to this folly soon. It’s making a mockery of EU legislation and a mockery of the EU scientific community.

Friday, 19 February 2010

Each table at the Provision Trade Federation dinner this week was requested to enter a competition to guess how many calories were in the meal. My table contained the cognoscenti of the world of farming, food production, publishing, and, significantly, a representative from the organisation which aspires to be the one stop shop on food information in the UK.

My mate Gav from Defra was there. For many years Gav has been one of Defra’s brightest stars. I’ve always trusted his judgement implicitly... apart from the fact that he’s a devoted Hibs fan. I lost sympathy for the Hibees in 1978 after buying a Scotch pie at Easter Road. From the outside, it was of Desperate Dan dimensions. But inside it was quarter inch of filling and two and a half inches of air. Once you’d squashed it down to deflate it, you could have slid it under the door like a chapatti. However, Gav would know about calories. On the night we had a collective brain freeze (aka the Millennium Stadium). Our answer was wrong by a factor of 100%. I looked at Gav. He said he forgot to include the roll and butter. I think he must have had about six on the night!

When you go to bed after a PTF dinner, it’s always the same. You set your alarm clock, say goodnight to your teddy bear, put your head on the pillow, and bang... instantly your alarm clock goes off! Have you been there? The worry for me was that I was chairing and speaking at the World Dairy Forum conference in London. It’s a great privilege to chair and speak at a conference. From the chair, I was able to give myself a fantastic introduction. From the platform there was no-one in the chair to stop me going on forever, although out of respect for the audience I gave myself a five-minute warning. Afterwards, from the chair, I asked myself a series of deep and penetrating questions, to which from the platform I gave clear, concise, and visionary answers. In summing up from the chair, I thanked myself on the platform for adding a dimension to the subject and providing a clear and focused insight into the future. Yip, multitasking is not an easy skill to master, but I found it an absolute pleasure.

What I learned from the World Dairy Forum was that if we are really serious about the sustainability of this great industry of ours, then the answer lies emphatically in research and development. In one of the question and answer sessions, I had on my left a dairyman from Spain successfully developing functional dairy products for children, and on my right, a man from Unilever developing weight-reduction products. I asked both what percentage of their turnover they spent on research and development. Diego from Puleva said 9%, Sergei from Unilever said around 7%. Now what do you think the average UK dairy industry figure would be? There was a charming lady form Benecol speaking. Her company already has EU article 14 approval allowing them to claim that Benecol products could lower cholesterol and were therefore good for the heart. She said that this was the pay-off for a 20-year investment in research and development. She, like the rest of us, will be waiting with interest for the outcome next week of the dairy health claim applications. I fear then that we may see the benefit of 20-years of intensive political lobbying by the competitors of dairy products.

Dairy companies and organisations such as DairyCo for farmers have a sustainability imperative to maintain high levels of R&D for the future. But there is also a collective responsibility on the world’s Dairy Councils, and similar bodies, to develop and share the costs of pre-competitive scientific research – at a much faster rate than we are doing now. Next week, the world’s leading nutritional dairy scientists are in the Dairy UK office at a meeting organised by the Global Dairy Platform. Unfortunately I won’t be there (Gwyn needs me at the NFU conference to support his aspirations for elevation to high office), but I’ll be leaving copies of the newsletter on all the seats. I hope they read them.

Friday, 12 February 2010

I’ve been paying a lot of attention this week to 16 to 24 year old women (easy, Jo, easy). In fact, this is the target demographic for the industry’s new super flash focused marketing campaign on liquid milk and I was participating in the selection of celebrities to front it. I say participating, but spectating was closer to the truth – particularly when one of my co-selectors publicly proffered the view that she found it hard to understand how men in their 50s could possibly appreciate what would appeal to 16 to 24 year old women. Well, Hugh Hefner I am not, but I live with two young women in this age bracket and I know exactly what appeals to them because I see it every month in my bank statement!

Fortunately, one person who does have a good appreciation of the behaviour of young women is Dr Alison Tedstone of the Food Standards Agency (and also the Secretary of the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition), who this week chose the columns of the Daily Mail to reveal to the nation that one of the reasons why teenage girls in the UK had such bad diets was because they didn’t consume enough dairy. Well, so say all of us, Alison – on two fronts. First, because we agree that this revelation is shocking, and second, that the FSA is prepared to stand up publicly and support milk.

Alison was commenting on the publication of the statistics on the National Diet and Nutrition Survey - a survey which was last published 10 years ago. But the statistics have put the Queen Bee into a frenzy because they show a decline in milk consumption at the same time as a significant drop in the proportion of teenage girls who don't consume enough calcium. Hold on. How can that be? Dairy is the biggest source of calcium in the diet, so what's going on there? The matter is now under QB investigation, (hint: look at the consumption of smoothie-type drinks, lattes etc for hidden dairy) and we'll report back, but clearly the sooner that the nation's poster sites are emblazoned with milk celebrities appealing to teenagers and young women, the better. The campaign is due to start in early April.

I’m off to the Millennium Stadium this weekend to watch Scotland trounce the taffs at rugby. Our manager has rightly insisted that they keep the stadium roof open during the game because I’ve noticed in the past that that roof is capable of spraying down a fine mist of debilitating dust which lands on everyone except the Welsh players. But I don’t want to dwell on this too much because it’s been another bad week for the sons of Llewellyn. I had to console Dairy UK’s Treasurer Roger Evans, strangely not because of the defeat or the now infamous “trip” by Alun-Wyn Jones at Twickers last weekend (how could a man who spends half his life trying to trip up the English complain about such a perfect demonstration of the art) but because he couldn’t get out of the stadium car park for two-and-a-half hours. Then there was poor Welshie from Defra. She tried to buy a Wales top to wear for the match but she was told by the shop assistant that they “didn’t sell club shirts”.

I next spotted Welshie in the public gallery at the latest EFRA hearing on the collapse of Dairy Farmers of Britain, starring ex-CEO ‘Magic Malcolm Smith’. I was watching Parliamentary TV and, as the session wore on, my 3D glasses nearly fell off as the personal retribution count mounted. I am delighted that this was the end of possibly the most useless waste of Select Committee time ever. The fact that it has dragged on relentlessly for months, allowing all sorts of slurs and allegations to be publicly aired, is shameful. I support the principle of Parliamentary privilege but this was an abuse beyond approbation. The often repeated justification that the inquiry was intended to throw positive light for the future was always going to be sidetracked. It could only be of interest to the industry jackals who revel in recrimination and finger pointing. It’s time to forget it and move on.

Friday, 5 February 2010

As you hear the damning collection of stories this week about the societal breakdown of the UK (John Terry, Avron Grant, MPs’ expenses, Chilcot Inquiry etc etc) have you stood back, looked at yourself in the mirror and asked the question: am I part of this? Have I contributed to this? This week, the Begg household was shaken to the core whilst talking about the ban on wearing pyjamas at Tesco in Cardiff. One of my daughters casually revealed that it had been her local shop when she was at university in Cardiff and that when she visited it, she more often wore pyjamas than not. She said the whole of Wales does that. Eh? What? This was a crisis. I summoned my wife from the West Wing to discuss where we’d gone wrong as parents. I mean, I remember arriving unannounced at her flat once to find her in a Welsh rugby top. I’d been worried about that, but I’d taken the view that it could have been much worse! But this? We’re still in shock, and her sisters won’t go out in the street. This weekend we’re going to a social event in London which will include watching the England v Wales rugby match. Welshie from Defra will be there. I wonder if she’ll be wearing her pyjamas?

In a week of shocks, I went to Belfast. The staff at my hotel were having their Christmas party. What a topsy turvy world. I’d gone there for dinner with Roary, erstwhile Scots MEP George Lyon. Now Roary has found himself as rapporteur of the EU Parliament’s Agriculture Committee and he’s writing the Parliament’s post EU budget CAP reform paper - the most important paper affecting the future of European dairy farmers for years. But in one of my Terry Pratchett moments I had forgotten that in a previous life Roary had been the President of the Scottish NFU. He spotted me as soon as he came into the room, came straight over and said, “Hey, you still owe me a quid for a bet we had on an Old Firm match in 1998”. I had to cough up, leaving me unable to buy any drinks for the rest of the evening. I thought to myself, this is the right man to look after the EU budget – every pound’s a prisoner. I must make sure Roary never meets Roger Evans, the Dairy UK Treasurer.

Now, I’ve always believed that the farmer and the cowman should be friends. You know, territory folk should stick together, territory folk should all be pals. Right? Well yes, until it comes to sharing out the spoils in the EU budget, and then it’s er, tricky! Should there be less money or should the member states be made to chip in. Should it be shifted to rural development or should it stay with the single farm payment. If it does, should the money go to active or inactive farmers, big or small, old or young? Should the payments be area-based or historic? Should it all be agreed centrally or delegated to member states to decide, or even to regions of member states? Should it be spent on food production or on the environment? And above all, should the SFP be weighted as it is now to the big boys club, which includes France, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK, or should it go to the new member states in the east? This is what the new EU Commissioner Mr Cioloş (from Romania) allegedly wants. The farmers at the dinner were a bit worried about that. On a per hectare basis, Northern Ireland is one of the biggest recipients of the SFP. They don’t want Roary to be doing things to please the new Commissioner.

But the CAP reform paper post-EU budget, I mean how complicated can that be? Roary will undoubtedly need a sharp pencil. If I was him, I’d go for simplicity – just like Henry Longhurst, who once reduced the complexities of golf to a few words “Put the ball in front of your feet, wiggle about until you’re comfortable, then hit it”. I’d start with two basic principles. First, the CAP is there to provide an economic return to dairy farmers. Second, the prime reason for the countryside is the production of food. After that, everything falls into place.

The priority for the EU dairy farmer is to survive the market volatility which is the downside of deregulation. So, forget about fancy risk management tools and go for intervention at the bottom of the market, and the sensible use of intervention stocks at the top. This will instil stability which in turn will build up confidence and help investment planning. As a buy low, sell high system, it shouldn’t affect the SFP, as in theory such it could earn money for the EU, or at least be close to budget neutral over any price cycle. And when you’re forming the soup queue, Roary, put the active farmers at the front, and the young ones in speedy boarding. But above all, don’t show your hand too early. I remember talking to big Franz Fischler, who was the Commissioner who delivered the Agenda 2000 deal. The Agenda 2000 reform was supposed to smooth the way for a WTO deal, and he wanted to decouple everything from everything in advance. I said to him, “Why not wait and give it away during the WTO talks? That way you won’t give away too much.” He said, “Because they’ll never be another CAP reform after this. There will be no political will to do it again. So I have to do it now.” Thanks, Franz. I trust your new career as a racing tipster is going well. So, anticipate nothing in advance from the budget talks, Roary.

Friday 29 January 2010

At Dairy UK we are never too proud to take the world’s best practice and implement it “chez nous”. Moreover, innovation is our driving motivation. So this week we’ve decided to move on from our ritualistic “Celtic Huddle” which starts each day at the office. Instead we’re going to adopt Andy Murray’s full jawed guttural primal scream. Ed Komorowski trailblazed our new policy at the Dairy UK Johne’s disease meeting this week, and I’m told it went well, with only the nice lady from the NFU perhaps feeling a little threatened. Look out for more of this at meetings attended by Dairy UK staff in future. It’s the new means of identifying winners.

I missed the Johne’s meeting, having been delayed on my return from the highly successful DairyCo pre-board meeting dinner. DairyCo have to be applauded for inviting a gaggle of noted industry heroes and villains (depending on your perspective) to join them for supper. Was there a sub-plot? If so, I couldn’t detect it, and an atmosphere of gregarious bonhomie prevailed. I only hope the board meeting itself the next day was as successful. I suggested to the DairyCo Chairman that in situations where pre-board meetings are successful, he should simply scrap the meeting and instead issue the minutes of the dinner. His face said “great idea”... his lips uttered something about ministerial accountability.

The one downside from the dinner was that the Dairy UK Chairman had had to send apologies, having been struck down by a “bug”. In considering the source of the bug he had narrowed it down to two possibilities –being fed haggis and neeps at the Dairy UK Board meeting or his three-day charity cycle ride in scorching heat on the banks of the River Nile. I mean, I ask you. Which is more likely? Nevertheless, I want to thank all the nice men from Environmental Health at the Food Standards Agency for eventually eliminating us from their inquiries. No, it was no trouble at all, and it was nice to spend a day watching firsthand how you go about these things!

I’m off to Brussels next week for a couple of days to see how my EU friends are doing. This is more or less my first visit back for a few months, having previously been occasionally dispirited by what I would describe as “vision issues” with some in the grey corridors of Euro power. And to be honest, I’ve been quite happy to satisfy my appetite for Belgian waffles from the kiosk at Baker Street station. In the past, indeed for virtually my entire working involvement with Europe, the UK has been disregarded, nay shunned in Brussels. They take our money, and give us lip service in return. That’s because even after EU entry we continued to defend our traditional British systems and were slow to succumb to European ideals – even though, frankly, in my view, we should have.

Now the tide has turned completely. It seems to me that all the innovation – welcome and unwelcome – is coming from the UK and infiltrating Brussels and its apparatchiks. In addressing the challenges of product reformulation, nutrition, food safety and above all, environment, it seems to me now that we are setting the scene, and leading the legislation of the future. It is they, not us, who want to stick to the past. I know this from the responses I get internationally to this newsletter, which is passed round with the top right hand corner messages attached – watch this with care. And I know it when I hear that my EU trade association colleagues want to respond directly to UK government consultations. Of course, at government level there is still a bit to go. Defra’s approach to the CAP of extreme liberalisation recently found support from only four other countries over question of the €300m handout to dairy farmers – with 21 opposed. But later on, when the big issues come forward, we’ll see how that changes.

So I’m going back to Brussels next week ever hopeful of a positive dialogue. If it materialises, one of Andy’s primal screams will resonate around the Grande Place. In French of course, in case they don’t understand me.

Friday 22 January 2010

My grateful thanks to Fergus the Green for maintaining the sustainability of this column while I was off whistling in the Canaries. Did you know that there is an island there called Gomera where all communication is done by whistling? I decided to introduce the concept this week at Dairy UK. The Queen Bee was delighted. No stranger to flattering whistles, she says she’s at last starting to understand what we’re all going on about.

My only observation on the Canarian dairy industry is that you pay the same price for a pint of milk as you do for a pint of beer. In UK terms, wouldn’t that put a smile on the faces of our hard pressed farmers if they were receiving their share of £3.50 a pint instead of 31p per pint or so from our supermarkets.

While I was away loafing, three major events caught my eye. The FSA activity on liquid milk; the announcement of the candidates for the NFU office bearers; and the return of that great Scottish philosopher, Rab C Nesbitt to British television. I wondered which would have the most profound impact on the future of the British dairy industry. The significance of Rab is that this column is modelled totally on his style and charm - string vest and all: superficially amusing but deep, penetrating, controversial and full of social comment... Right! I recommend it totally as a modus operandi for the candidates in the NFU elections. They might well not agree with you, but they’ll always remember you! The best wishes of Dairy UK go to the dairy candidates in these elections next month. Whatever the outcome, it’s crucial for the spirit of co-operation to be re-established. We are collectively weaker for its absence.

The FSA announcements on liquid milk, promoting enthusiastically the consumption of lower-fat milks (and 1% in particular), came as no surprise to me because we’ve been working closely on this with the FSA in the Dairy Partnership. It won’t have surprised the regular reader of this column either, because I’ve been predicting the future of the UK liquid milk market for months and months. I just hope that the smaller dairy businesses, especially the BMBs, are listening and preparing for the future appropriately. Dairy UK, of course, publicly supported these developments, but this has drawn some criticism from our colleagues overseas who believe that anything other than support for traditional products challenges the integrity of dairy! I respect these views, in particular for the sustenance of a natural image for milk, but the greater need is for the overall profitability of the industry and to have our Government advising consumers to drink more milk and not to cut milk consumption. And on this occasion, mercifully this is what happened. The rest is down to the skills of communication.

Next week I am looking forward to welcoming Farm Minister Jim Fitzpatrick to the Dairy UK Board meeting, where he will have the pleasure of  haggis and neeps on the lunch menu to celebrate Burns Night. I am also eagerly anticipating dinner with my friends at the DairyCo Board in Stoneleigh, where, of course, as you would expect, I hope to pass the evening advising them how to spend their money wisely. I’m good at that. I learned the trick from my wife. As a precaution, I have asked to sit next to the Dairy UK Chairman who will also be a guest. Just to make sure that he tastes the food first!

Friday 15 January 2010

With the Director General’s pencil nowhere in sight this week, I thought I’d take the opportunity to hijack the blog and turn it a shade of green. But how to start? Google trends reckons that the weather is the top story of the week, with “weather forecast” and “snow” also making it into the top 10; so the British as predictable as ever. As were the media who threatened to create a panic with stories of empty shelves across the country, all using the same image of the one supermarket that had forgotten to restock. But the industry was quick to respond.

As Wednesday rolled on, I got my first taste of snow with at least an inch covering the pavement outside my flat, not to worry I managed to battle in against the odds and made it to the office on time, despite London’s best efforts to grind to a halt. Wednesday also saw what appears to be becoming standard government practice of adopting opposition policies, with the announcement that it will proceed with the creation of an Ombudsman in February.

I have spent a lot of my week preparing responses to calls to eat less dairy on environmental and nutritional grounds. The battle lines have been well and truly drawn on nutrition and the environment, with messages like reduced your meat and dairy consumption to save the planet and yourself at the same time. We need to act against these messages. We have a product we can be proud of, a nutrient dense food and a major source of many nutrients in the UK diet. Simply substituting dairy products, with high protein alternatives such as soy based products would not replace the array of nutrient provided by dairy products. It might be possible to consume other foods as replacements, but not as efficiently as with dairy products. For example, to get the same calcium benefit from a glass of milk you would have to eat 1kg of spinach, and this would not contain the protein.

As the week draws to a close, the FSA launch their messaging on the Sat Fat campaign in an overcrowded room at Aviation House. Far from being an assault on dairy, it appears to be a constructive campaign – in part the result of the partnership we have been fostering. Now the FSA has launched into country origin labelling; more on this to come I think.

So for me, it’s off to Stoneleigh to meet our friends at DairyCo to foster another partnership on carbon footprinting. As I sit here on the train, I can now see what everyone has been talking about; a positively wintery scene. As Jim ended his blog with a prediction, perhaps I should do the same; but maybe not, as I wrote in my Milk Industry article this week, the last of my predictions to be published was that 2009 would be the year that water would knock carbon off the front page. Although there were trickles of news, it was not quite the downpour I had forecast. It will be big in 2010, I promise. Fergus the Green over and out.

Friday, 8 January 2010

‘Take me back, take me back again where heather hills are high. To the land of lochs and glens and silver seas...’ Where did you celebrate the New Year? I went to the world famous Edinburgh Street Party. You might consider that to be madness, and you’d have been right. Arriving ticketless as usual, I was nevertheless standing 10 yards in front of the stage as Madness, the old Camden rockers, went “One Step Beyond”, under the blue moon, with Edinburgh Castle as the backdrop. Madness has now been knocking out the same words to the same music for 30 years. As I listened I thought to myself ‘that’s a bit like being on the [censored] Committee [Editorial veto –come on Jim, this’ll never get by the lawyers. What about your New Year resolutions then?] – without of course the music.

It was a truly Christmas-card setting with the snow genuinely “deep and crisp and even”, save for the odd empty can of Tennent’s. Underfoot, we walked solidly on Scottish grit, made from salt – true grit in other words. As I crunched along, I wondered if this is what the salt that the FSA made us take out of our cheese is now used for. And, by the way, if you’ve wondered where all the gritters have been during this cold snap, I can tell you they are all on holiday in Edinburgh – teams of them creating traffic jams on the Murrayfield Road.

Five days later, madness continued to provide the prevailing theme as I watched the House of Commons Select Committee query Andrew Cooksey, Rob Knight and Philip Moodie, formerly of Dairy Farmers of Britain. This session had been pre-billed as a sequel to Silence of the Lambs, but, while the Committee Chairman Michael Jack is a highly respected politician, on this particular day as a forensic interrogator he was not quite in the Columbo class. I suspect that Hannibal Lecter might have taken a different approach. His Committee colleagues couldn’t help. Their questions were often prefaced with “I’m not an expert, but...” The replies, on the other hand were all of a “Well, it’s just as well that I am, then, because...” nature. Before long, the DFoB team were controlling the agenda with consummate professionalism, and after 2½ hours, the committee ran out of time. They never got near the key questions surrounding the close of the business, or on the lessons to be learned, and I sensed that they didn’t really want to hear those. I think it’s time to call a halt to this unnecessary blame fest. Other than as an exercise in exorcism, its purpose can only have been to discover whether the milk co-ops have structural issues or have difficulty raising capital. No evidence whatsoever has been presented on that front, and while you could argue that this conclusion in itself is enough to justify the inquiry, it’s now time to call it a day and move on. After the hearing I called quota guru Mr P for a reaction. I found him skiing with some Scottish pals in Val d'Isère. I mused that at least he’d have someone to buy the drinks. I asked him what Val d'Isère was like. He said “slippery”. For Mr P maybe, but not, I thought, for the surefooted DFoB officials in the Select Committee.

Finally, the year did not start well for Environment Secretary Hilary Benn. His visionary Food 2030 policy document, generally acclaimed by all and sundry, was rapidly swept off the news bulletins by the spat which followed the Conservative statement supporting a supermarket ombudsman. What a pity, because the Food 2030 report palpably demonstrates that in addressing the issues the current Government considers to be important, the dairy industry is well ahead of the curve. So, I feel, as a result, Defra did not respond to vocal pressure which urged them to recommend cutting down dairy consumption. But we must be ever alert to this threat. In this country, the much respected WWF has strong views on dairy consumption. I should tell you that in other parts of the world, such as in the US, the WWF take a completely opposite position. But here we expect them to release a report later this month calling for a savage reduction in dairy consumption. We must rigorously defend against such views, but with hard evidence. And Dairy UK is working continuously on a global basis to generate this. Although Defra won’t be swayed by the WWF, their arguments will be exposed to our consumers, and we must be ready for a public debate.

But you know, what kind of person would try and predict what the world will be like in 20 years time anyway? Well, here’s my shot. This week Darren Ferguson, son of Sir Alex, became manager of Preston North End. I confidently predict that by 2030, PNE will have won 11 Premier Leagues, two Champions Leagues, five FA Cups and two World Club Championships. I’ll leave you the phone number of my nursing home so that you can ring to congratulate me if I’m right!

Wednesday 23 December

The Director General's pencil is completely worn out this week. It all started on Monday as he circled the office, notepad in hand, recording everybody's Christmas wishes. Mesmerised by the agility he displayed as he pranced and leapt from desk to desk like a spinning top, I asked Curly what was going on. ‘It's a seasonal tradition,’ he said. ‘Think of a Christmas wish and Jim'll fix it.’ Oh ho, I thought, here's an opportunity. As I watched Fergus the Green receive his environmentally friendly abacus - a must for calculating carbon offsets, and Curly open his shiny new editorial scalpel, I waited. Finally, it was my turn. ‘Jim,’ I said, ‘I want to deliver the Queen's Christmas message.’ ‘Done,’ he replied. I should have known as he left my office with a big smile on his face that there wouldn't be a TV crew involved. When I arrived at my desk this morning to find a new pen and a note from Curly saying the deadline for writing the blog was 12.30 today - it all became clear.

You might be wondering what the Director General is doing while I’m writing his blog. Well, as you'll know if you're a regular reader, he’s just a pussy cat, so I suppose it’s only natural he’d feel the need to go on the prowl. At the last sighting he was seen, hands overflowing with bundles of mistletoe, running towards the NFU's offices singing, "’tis the season to be jolly". I'm not sure what that's all about, but at least I now know what to buy him for Christmas - a shiny new pencil so he can get back to writing his own blog next week!

In the meantime, I’m grateful for the opportunity to wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year and to exercise my right to reply. Those of you who are regular readers know me well. My exploits are a regular feature and I feel truly honoured to receive so many column inches - even when they’re of the not-so-flattering kind. For those of you that were hoping I’d take the opportunity to answer all the questions that come my way about the life of the Director General as heard through the thin walls of Dairy UK, I’m afraid I have to disappoint. Wild horses couldn’t drag that information out of me. Although I must say that I now realise how naïve I was in thinking that when I finished my PhD many years ago, my time in education had come to end!!!

I feel sure you’ll forgive me, though. After all, what woman given a pen and a blank sheet of paper and surrounded by fairy lights and singing reindeer wouldn’t take the opportunity to talk about something close to her heart? As Christmas and the New Year get closer I’ve spent some time thinking about what 2009 has brought The Dairy Council and what our future might hold. It’s fair to say we at The Dairy Council have had a very good year. Highlights include: the move to Baker Street, which has made life a lot livelier and given us the freedom us to open our doors to new opportunities; successful events including Dairy Through the Ages, the 50th Anniversary of the Christmas Cheeses and our Milk and Sport conference; enhanced our international activity including establishing an alliance with the National Dairy Council in Ireland, and successfully won EU funding for Milk in Action – a campaign starting in April 2010. All in all, a very good year and one that could have been much less fruitful and certainly less fun without the support and encouragement of all of the readers of the Director General’s blog – and indeed the Director General himself.

From the lofty heights of the hive, I have cast a Queen Bee’s eye into the future (just the one - the other was still smarting from walking into the communal Christmas tree earlier today). For sure there are challenges for the industry. Health claims legislation is the obvious one. It will affect all of our work and yours too. The media fallout as claims are rejected due to procedural issues in Brussels will not be pretty, and we must be mindful of how we will look to the consumer. Challenges from anti-dairy and special interest groups will continue. Just as nutrition and regulation began walking hand in hand a couple of years ago and are now inextricably linked, so too will nutrition and environmental issues. None the less, I see a bright future. We produce good quality nutrient rich products, outward facing promotional efforts will start this year both by the MMF and The Dairy Council, and we will look for every opportunity to promote the benefits of dairy.

If you remember nothing else in the next year, I would urge you to remember the Queen’s Christmas message – dairy is good for you.

As for the Director General, news just in is that nerves have taken hold and he’s trying to take back his Christmas blog. Forget it Jim: even if you start running now you’ll never be back from Stoneleigh before this goes to print!!

Friday 18 December

This week Dairy UK has been decking the halls with boughs of holly Fa la la la la, la la la la. But as I write I’m also listening sadly to Terry Wogan’s last programme on BBC Radio 2. Twenty-seven years of spreading joy, happiness and optimism. In my view his contribution in this capacity is matched only by Sir Alex Ferguson.

Terry in his last show was in a reflective mode. I wondered if I should be the same in this blog. It would help if Curly could make up his mind if this was the last Dairy UK news of the year or not. But the poor lad is worn out. As a new homeowner, he’s finding out a lot of things for the first time like gas bills, and the price of central heating spare parts etc, and it’s shaken him to the core. At the Dairy UK communal Christmas card signing this week (no we’ve not and never will surrender to email cards), we had to find him some inspiration. He’s in charge of adding all the kisses to the cards, you see, and the ink in his (DairyCo) pen had run out just by signing the Women’s Food and Farming Union card alone. I can’t find him in the office today. I hope he’s having a good rest.

Joining in our Christmas celebration this week - and it was an absolute pleasure to see them - were Cannon and Ball, DairyCo’s version of Jedward. We’d only booked them for one afternoon, but we seemed to have them here for most of the week talking about school milk. On inquiry I’m told that they refused to leave until the mistletoe appeared on our Christmas tree. Phew! What an oversight. Once that was sorted they were on their way, sleigh bells jingling in the snow. With a fair wind, they should be home for Christmas. I’ll return to the issue of school milk in future.

Although it’s Christmas, I noticed that the generosity of spirit which Terry pleaded for this morning has unfortunately not extended to the Liberal Party in the shape of Mr Tim Farron. He is once again in slamming, damning and blasting mode; this time about the Rural Payments Agency. It’s almost as if he’s suggesting the RPA staff set out each day to deliberately cock everything up. So I say peace and goodwill to him and to all the other commentators who feels that things will improve by using the media to condemn people who are trying to do things in their interests. If we ever talk about doing that at Dairy UK, we always have a look in the mirror first. Our positive stance on most situations reflects reality not aspirations, and it is to our credit. But it’s also the area for which we’ve been most criticised. In one of the relentless reviews of the year I’ve been asked to do for various journals, I was asked: ‘why are you so positive?’ My answer was simply that I don’t want the industry image to be dominated by its unhappiest people.

If this is the last Dairy UK News of the year (and more certainty on that should be forthcoming because Curly has now re-appeared looking more like the abominable snowman and having had his train cancelled by the weather. (Get yourself a team of reindeer and a sleigh, Curly. To the best of my knowledge Santa never relied on British Rail, and my carrots had always been nibbled on Christmas morning), then my tribute of the year goes to the Dairy UK staff. It’s not just the ones you see in London. It’s our regional team, the trolley repatriation guys, our people in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and all our publications, media and legal advisors. Well done to all of them they deserve it. I’ve watched boys turn in to men in our office this year steered and cajoled by rock solid veterans. In particular the output on farming issues has leapt ahead, culminating at the year end in our most successful and meaningful conference ever on Johne’s Disease. This will result in real action next year and we still continue to co-operate with forward-looking farming organisations such as DairyCo and the RABDF to address the issue.

And then there’s The Dairy Council. So often the victims of playful teasing in this column, but finishing the year with a grant from the European Union to further the interests of the British dairy industry. It’s a fantastic effort - an extra slice of Christmas pudding for the Queen Bee and her team at the Christmas lunch.

I’ll have to start thinking now about Christmas presents. What can I get the Dairy UK Chairman. I see that the highest selling male and female musicians in the UK this year are Paolo Nutini and Susan Boyle. Do you think he would like that? Well no, me neither. In that case it’ll have be a replica of the Black Watch tartan suit that little Joe McElderry wore to seal victory in the X Factor. Touch of class, eh? Job done.

Friday 11 December

The perennial dilemma for a lobbyist is whether you win more with a clenched fist or with a velvet glove. The choice of style is always deliberate for a lobbyist. It should never be a personality thing. This week I sat within the hallowed portals of DG-Agri and watched EU farmer after farmer crucify... well, let’s say, lambast, an EU Commission official. His crime had been to explain the rationale behind the Commission’s €300m hardship gift, which the farmers will probably be able to use to buy their chocolate bunnies next Easter. The Commission official might have expected the farmers to have said, erm, thank you. Instead, he got a load of snash. Eventually he snapped. “My officials work 12 hours a day in your interests,” he said. “More than 90% of the money we pay now comes straight to you, and not through an intermediary. There are 500 million EU taxpayers who would be interested now in what’s coming out of your mouths!” Phew! Later on I met him in the corridor. I offered him a tranquilliser, but he settled for a calming Proud of Dairy badge.

At Dairy UK, we’ve used a variety of styles over the years to get our point across. Always, the subject is discussed in advance and a decision taken. Seldom is there universal agreement. The terriers amongst us want to go for the jugular using the media. The scientists and intellectuals want “the correct” approach and cannot stomach us praising our targets when we know for sure that they are scientifically wrong. For them, there is only one solution. And then there’re the pussycats. They always want to cuddle. I,  as you would expect, always lead the pussycat faction at Dairy UK, and I’ll remain in this position until all the awkward soothsayers bandits and charlatans that we sometimes deal with see it our way (purr, purr) When the pussycats win an argument at Dairy UK, the scientists and intellectuals shudder, and the eyes of the terriers scream “wimp”.

So please consider me in pussycat mode as you read the rest of this blog. I wonder whose bright idea it was to unveil a cut in the Climate Change Levy discount that businesses can claim from the Government during the week of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference. Our man, Fergus the Green, in Copenhagen for the summit, is now called Fergus the Purple. The stimulus to UK dairy companies from this tax concession has seen them reduce carbon emissions by 130,000 tonnes, while world leading dairy plants are built. So, if the Government wants this to continue, this is wholly the wrong signal. Today, clearly linked to the agricultural debate in Copenhagen, we have the Sustainable Development Commission calling pointedly for reduced dairy consumption. Their report displays a bias that we have come to associate with the City University. Of course we will challenge it but we must do so with science and information, which we are building up progressively. I don’t believe the Government will heed this report. They have demonstrated in the past ultra caution when very similar work from City University is promoted to them, but we must keep the flow of information going. I urge those of you who are sitting out there with unpublished research – and you know who you are – to get the information into the public domain as quickly as possible. Otherwise, the City Universities of this world could win.

The Wiseman Neighbourhood Shop of the Year Award was a subdued affair this year. That is the official company line and I am authorised to deliver it. All we had to entertain us were choirs, a gaggle of water nymphs, a Las Vegas street artist, a talking cow, a flotilla of pipers, a cacophony  of fireworks, a recreation of the “American in Paris” film set, and a cluster of  performing nuns. That’s all, and absolutely nothing else. On the night, the generous audience collected £45,000 for charity and for me, a new unsung hero emerged.

The Great Scot’s Bar in the Cameron House Hotel on the banks of Loch Lomond has a truly evocative atmosphere; it’s steeped in history and it’s where the “Boozegate Affair” involving the Scottish national football team took place. But in truth, it’s so busy that a man can almost die of thirst while waiting to be served. They say that cometh the hour, cometh the man, so step forward this week’s winner of the J Begg “Life is All About Timing” award: Charlie Faulkner of RWD. He swooped down from a packed throng like a condor from the High Andes just at that second when the barmaid looked up to dismiss and reject her next victim. Moments later, the combined leadership of the Dairy UK/Dairy Council and PTF had satisfied smiles on their faces. You can’t buy talent like that. A winner for sure!

Friday 4 December

This week, Food Minister Jim Fitzpatrick tightened his grip on the Dairy Supply Chain Forum, rattling through the agenda with Churchillian efficiency. Ominously, I thought, he advanced the date of the next meeting from next June (ie post-election) to next March (pre-election). This shows either a lack of confidence in Labour’s prospects or sound political determination to register his legacy with the industry. The legacy will have to have been created in approximately 7 months but that should be no problem for a Scot. Look what Susan Boyle has done in around 5 minutes.

Anyway, everyone was in buoyant mood, reflecting the season of the year. In the spirit of things, those who usually wear angry face masks had tried to take them off. Only one or two had discovered they are actually welded on. An enlightened contribution came from the retail sector, who complained about the succession outlook for farmers. What was she saying? Was she suggesting that some farmers were over the hill? As I glanced across the room at the almost cherubic faces of my farmer colleagues, all I could see was the springboard for a positive future. The retailers also said they had a problem with graduate recruitment. I was forced to challenge this." If you want high quality graduate trainees, come round to my house", I said. "You’ll find stacks of them that I paid for, all having showers with my hot water and all leaving my food at the side of their plates - I’d be happy to pass them on to you". However the serious point she was making was not lost on me or the meeting. The food industry needs a more attractive image to ensure high quality succession.

The next day saw another triumph for the Queen Bee, her advisors and the cheese industry at the Royal Hospital in Chelsea. Have a look yourself on YouTube or at tinyurl.com/xmascheese. Global press coverage flowed from this prestigious event in the Christmas calendar. The Great Alexander Chair of The Dairy Council was masterful in his assembly oration - a great tribute to a man more noted for consuming cheese than producing it. A misprint in the instructions had led him to believe that it was the Ceremony of the Christmas Knees, not cheese, so he had worn a Celtic skirt, which prevented his photograph from appearing in the Gulf Times. He validated this by claiming that his mother had told him he had good legs. ‘Yes,’ I thought, ‘you can always rely on your mother to tell you the truth!’

The one acrimonious point came at the lunch. I was proud and honoured to have been asked to compile and present the Cheese Quiz. I thought it could be the start of something big. However, after the event, I was summarily dismissed by the Queen Bee for making the questions too hard. On reflection, I suppose she was right. I mean, imagine asking the cognoscenti of the cheese industry to recognise a picture of Wallace from Wallace and Gromit, or to unscramble the letters “hcddera” to form the word cheddar. Anyway, I was hauled off to the Tower in chains and that was the end of it.

Happily, I was released in time to chair the Dairy UK seminar on Johne’s disease, where Defra announced that 34.7% of UK herds were affected. Most experts were relieved at this, thinking that the size of the challenge would be greater. What encouraged me was that there is already a vast amount being done to take on this disease, which wastes both cattle and margins. It all just needs bringing together, and that’s what Dairy UK intends to do.

The seminar also produced my quote of the week, again from that endless production house of one-line quips, Roger Evans, Chairman of the UK Dairy Farmers’ Forum. “I admit that I’ve got Johne’s disease on my farm”, he said. “And that’s the nearest I’ll ever get to coming out!”

Friday 27 November

What a crazy week it’s been at Dairy UK, but you get them, don't you. There was an unhelpful report in The Lancet telling people to cut back on dairy foods, as a means of saving the planet. There’s been more complaints from DairyCo about the Blog (they can’t be serious, and they know it just makes me worse). And of course, we’ve had the strange and very public intervention from the Parliamentary Standards Committee into the activities of one of our former Chairmen. As a countervailing spirit-raising measure, I’ve instructed that we commence immediately with the erection of the Dairy UK Christmas tree in the office. I like Christmas and in my opinion, you can’t start preparing early enough, especially, if as is forecast, the winter starts to bite early. In these circumstances, there is nothing more heartening than to roast your chestnuts at an open fire.

I've missed most of the excitement in the office this week because I've been on a men-only golf break in sunny Portugal. Now, I’ve never been on a golf jaunt like this before but I’ve heard about them, and I just assumed that like the rest, this trip would be totally bogus. So when we got to Gatwick, I fully expected that we would deposit the golf clubs in the left luggage and then I’d find out what we were really doing. But it soon became clear that it was actually going to happen. Somehow as I boarded the plane, I had an air of anti-climax.

However, in this Blackberry age, even Portugal wasn’t far enough to protect me from what most people now view in retrospect as a comical confusion of reactions from different Government departments to the report in The Lancet. In there, it was suggested that cutting livestock production by 30% in the UK could help slow climate change. In the finest tradition of knee-jerk reactions, the Department of Health waded in with support for this view. Later, following a more balanced reflection, Defra condemned the report and its findings for its over-simplicity. Commentators, including the BBC, laughed at the Government’s haplessness, but it wasn’t so funny from an industry point of view. I fear that both in the lead up to Copenhagen and afterwards we are going to see more and more of this headline-grabbing nonsense. However, the good news is that after much hard work, the dairy industry now has the clear facts at its disposal to counter these allegations. So we must make sure that we lose no opportunity in communicating to everyone who will listen.

Next week I’m looking forward to persuading Defra at the Dairy Supply Chain Forum that the dairy agenda is much wider and longer term than the narrow confines of the EU Commission’s High Level Group. We also have our completely sold-out London seminar on Johnes’s disease, at which we hope to show leadership on behalf of the farming sector in addressing this important issue. We now know for sure that the Defra survey results will be reported at the seminar. It should be well worth attending.

However, the highlight of the week could well be The Dairy Council’s Ceremony of the Christmas Cheeses at The Royal Hospital in Chelsea. This is the 50th anniversary of the Ceremony and it promises to be the most spectacular ever. The Queen Bee has asked me to compile and present The Cheese Knowledge Quiz at the lunch. This is a real honour, although I know she’s only asked me because she doesn’t want me to be involved as a contestant. I’m a previous winner, you see, and whilst I agree with her that it was unfortunate that I found the questions inadvertently left behind on the photocopier, I do not apologise for reading them. I mean, what’s a man to do? I thought it was one of our Business Briefs. Anyway, as a reward to regular readers of this column, I’m going to give you this year’s answers in advance. They are yes, yes, no, yes, and no. All you’ll have to do on the day is put them in the right order. And a final clue – I hope it isn’t all too much of a Blur!

Friday 20 November

A visit to Scotland is an absolute tonic. I thoroughly recommend it to everyone. I think it’s because all the hills are made of tablet, and all the rivers are made of whisky. And of course, as you know, Scots have an enlightened philosophy on nutrition. This is that unlimited calories in any meal can be 100% neutralised if the meal is accompanied by a glass of diet Irn-Bru. Yes, while normal people are trying to diet, the Scots are usually dying to try it.

AgriScot this week fully embodied this joi de vivre. AgriScot is a Scottish cow show held in November, normally with the specific objective of turning everyone who attends into a brass monkey. But this year everyone was glowing, almost cherubic. The DairyCo Board had gathered there in their multitudes to join in the bonhomie. Is this why the DairyCo stand is always the biggest? Anyway this gave me another opportunity to advise, guide and cajole them on how to spend their money in future. I’m good at that, and I see from their facial expressions how much they welcome my advice. But guys, I warn you; I don’t know how much longer I can keep giving you the monopoly of good ideas on catch up. I have to spread these things around, you know.

But what is it that is engendering this positive progressive spirit amongst Scottish farmers’? I mean it’s not as though the NFUS are famous for overdosing on happy pills, is it? Has Thierry Henri had a hand in this? (Ed note: He had to get this in somewhere, so it might as well be here). No, I detect an encouraging change at the top. Young James McLaren of Crieff, very impressive President of the NFUS, was positively eulogising at the Agriscot conference about the contribution of the SNP Government to Scottish agriculture. And sitting next to him as he spoke was the equally impressive SNP Government in the form of Roseanna Cunningham, the Environment Minister. She delivered a comprehensive summary of “hand in the pocket” measures that she had implemented to advance the structure of Scottish agriculture – including support at Campbeltown no less. She deserves to be praised, because it is indeed a very impressive list. So impressive, that I wish the food authorities in England were driven by the SNP. Why not I wonder?

But James, what’s going on? Are you going soft? It is a rarity for the flesh to receive such gratuitous adulation from the thorn. And did I hear you say on environment, that you believed it was likely that nothing would come out of Copenhagen, but you would still lead forward Scottish farmers’ anyway? This is great stuff. Your association with Dairy UK is paying great dividends. If you go on like this you’ll eventually make it to the DairyCo Board.

Anyway, it was with a light step that made my way to the main event at Agriscot - the judging of the slimming competition. It seems that six Scottish giants of agriculture had spent the summer forgoing Forfar Bridies in aid of charity. The judging took place in the cattle ring next to a group of Ayrshire coos. Now, I accept that I have no right to criticise, but as I gazed over the parade ring, I was initially confused over which were the entrants to the slimming contest and which were looking to have rosettes pinned to their ears. Let’s face it: few in Scotland are ever required to spell or pronounce the word svelte.

The dairy challenge was lead by our own Alexander the Great, Chair of The Dairy Council. At the last minute he tried to engage me as his manager. But I was no help. He told me he had lost two stones. Hmm, I thought, he must have been having trouble with his gall bladder. He asked me what more he could do to win. I said shave off your moustache. Every little helps. Regrettably, he declined. In the end he lost the competition by a whisker! Aye, you’re never too old to learn!

Friday 13 November

This week we say adios to three giants of the dairy industry: Colin Smith, Richard Davies, and Alice. Alice? Alice? Who the heck (NB: Company Secretary edit) is Alice, I hear you say. Well, for the past few months, Dairy UK staff have been living next door to Alice in Baker Street. You’ll sometimes miss her if you visit the office, because her public profile is often camouflaged behind an enormous pile of nutrition textbooks, often reaching to the ceiling. You only know she’s been there because you can see the packets of biscuits she keeps on top of the pile of textbooks tied up with elastic bands progressively diminish. As her name suggests, this mighty atom has been the lynch pin, the lucky thread, the glue which holds things tightly together at The Dairy Council. Dr Alice Cotter BSc, H Dip Ed, PhD. RNutr from Oirland is off to pastures new. We wish her well, and we look forward to getting our window ledges back.

Colin and Richard are of course respectively the Chairman of Assured Food Standards and its dairy satellite Assured Dairy Foods. These two deserve gold medals because what they’ve achieved has been against all odds. Farmers’, wisely or unwisely do not like farm assurance. Marketers don’t like generic brands. The use of the term ‘British’, popular that it is, still doesn’t cut it with the clever people who advise me on these matters (unlike the terms Scotch or Welsh). And of course the Red Tractor doesn’t yet deliver the scale of market premium that had been hoped for, largely because there is not enough marketing spend. Yet despite all this, the logo is now on £10bn of food sold in the UK and dairy is by far the dominant chunk of that – I reckon about 40%. That’s incredible. It’s almost as much as my wife seems to spend on kitchens. The Red Tractor should have gone the way of all those other generic logos we’ve seen, but instead it has flourished. That in my view is down largely to these two guys. I know them both well. They’re of a type. They get their sleeves rolled up and get stuck into the issues when they arise. And crucially, they allow the highly capable staff at ADF to get on with their jobs; and they protect them from the phalanx of advisors, representatives and committee men who at AFS now make up a significant army. If the new Chairman at AFS has a challenge it will be to stick to this mantra. With AHDB now providing the promotional funds, I can see legions of marketing ‘experts’ from all the sectors all wanting a say. There is a risk that the new Marketing Committee becomes an elaborate version of the oompah oompah bird. Believe me I’ve seen it happen.

Finally, as you all know, the big problem with Board meetings of the Seven Dwarfs is that there’s only ever one of them happy. So it will be, I fear, at the next meeting of the Dairy Supply Chain Forum which is Food Minister Jim Fitzpatrick’s communications channel with the industry. It will be dominated by the discussions in Brussels in the High Level Group. The HLG has been created as a result of political pressure from the French, who want to solve the problems created by their milk pricing system by imposing it on the rest of the EU. So the best civil servants in each member state have all been hauled in to try and deliver a political fudge that will push milk pricing back off their desks. The HLG cannot deliver on the French aspirations without crippling the principles of a free market which is what the Commission, the UK Government, and virtually all the farmers’ organisations in this country and elsewhere all want. If prices continue to rise the result may turn out to be a political irrelevance. That was probably the calculation of Mariann Fischer Boel in giving it nine months to work out recommendations.

Food Minister Jim Fitzpatrick for all we know may only have six months left in office to make a significant mark! Does he want to be tied up with a political irrelevance? Of course not, so in my view the DSCF should be looking at food security. Why? Because it poses our greatest risk! Despite the fact that everyone talks about it, few people in the dairy industry can see that yet. That’s because it’s an ill defined concept which allows people to bring a whole range of issues and interlinked topics together to make it excessively complicated. And of course it’s a global issue so it’s impossible for people to see how it affects them in their small neck of the woods.

We’ve unravelled it all at Dairy UK. In a nutshell, unless we start to examine the food security issue in a serious way now, the world demand for protein in future will be satisfied from sources other than dairy. That’s the same demand that we’re relying on for the future prosperity of our industry. If that’s not more important than mollifying the French, I don’t know what is. I’ll be trying to persuade people about this when the DSCF meeting comes along. I’ll let you know how I get on.

Friday, 6 November

Three of my close colleagues had birthdays last week. The 50-year old celebrated hers with joy, gusto and relish. The two 32-year olds thought it was the end of their world, or worse, the end of their youth! Unfortunately for the kids, perception and not reality conditions the way you feel. The whole thing brought home to me the difficulties of communicating across age gaps (other than through music). Take young Curly for example. This week one of our members described something we are developing as like “something out of the 60s”. Now would you take that as a criticism or a compliment? I interpreted the comment as meaning “dated”, or “old fashioned”. Young Curly wasn’t alive in the 60s. He viewed it as retro cool! 

Last week was the 15th anniversary of deregulation, and I did an interview with the Farmers’ Weekly. I brought Curly in to listen to the history lesson. He sat there open mouthed listening, trying to work out if the MMBs had been a force for good or evil. Consider it in these terms Curly. What is the difference between the MMBs and a pot of yogurt? The yogurt has an active culture!

This week has been a very, very good week for Dairy UK. Our positive media penetration rating has reached a record level. The Board enjoyed an extremely positive interchange with Conservative Shadow Defra Secretary, Nick Herbert. We had our budget approved and further key areas of structural development nodded through. The Board also approved