Sally dares to lead a national campaign
Leading a protest about the price farmers receive for their milk has seen a young Westcountry mother-of-two hoisted into the limelight.
It has not been an altogether comfortable experience for 32-year-old Sally Dare, the daughter and wife of dairy farmers in East Devon.
A demonstratioon with Young Farmers dressed in cow outfits at the Royal Smithfield Christmas Fair at Shepton Mallet progressed to protests outside supermarkets, petitions, meetings with councillors – and a visit to 10 Downing Street to present a petition.
Sally found herself on television and radio, and being interviewed for programmes that had a national audience.
"It wasn’t really what I expected and to start with I was petrified," she admitted. "But we must get the message across."
Her campaign, The Great Milk Robbery, began with a conversation between her father, who runs a feed business as well as dairying, some of his customers, and herself in the company’s office.
Producers were being paid rock-bottom prices and it was high time to take the campaign onto the streets, they decided.
Sally, who lives in Axminster, enrolled the YFCs from both Axminster and Yarcombe, where she had been a prominent member for many years. She also purchased nine full-size cow outfits, ordered balloons and placards, and enlisted her local Conservative Euro MP, the Somerset farmer Neil Parish, an easy-convinced recruit.
It was Mr Parish who smoothed the way for a realistic first protest by The Great Milk Robbery team at Smithfield, when the authorities at the showground were being cagey about helping.
It, too, was Mr Parish who went with the party to Downing Street to present the petition with 3,000 signatures, where they were joined by Jim Paice, the Conservative shadow farms minister.
Before beginning the campaign Sally contacted the farming industry’s arch protester David Handley, the founder of Farmers For Action, the highly-successful ginger group. He gave valuable advice about how to deal with supermarket managers who might object to their forecourts being invaded by Young Farmers in fancy dress, accompanied by lifesize fibreglass cows, balloons, leaflets and petitions. The protests took place during the run-up top Christmas outside Tesco Supermarkets in Axminster, Honiton, Chard, Taunton and Dorchester.
In most cases there was absolutely no problem with the stores’ management. In fact Tesco staff told them that customers had said how much they liked seeing The Great Milk Robbery team, and gave them mince pies. Only at Dorchester did the manager object and summon the police, who, once they understood what it was all about, allowed the peaceful and good-natured picket to proceed.
"He kept saying we were spoiling the spirit of Christmas, which judging by the number of people who kept coming up to us didn’t seem to follow at all," said Sally. "In fact it all seemed rather funny. The police moved us to the store’s special pick-up area, which we occupied very satisfactorily for the rest of the time we were there."
Campaign members have received support from local MPs and councillors, and Sally and a delegation last week visited County Hall in Exeter to explain the reasons for their protest to county councillors, and to warn of the impact on the tourist trade if dairy farming foundered.
The campaigners also wrote to David Miliband, the Secretary of State for Defra, and to his junior Minister, Ben Bradshaw, the Labour MP for Exeter, explaining what they were doing and stressing why they felt forced to take action, with the dairy sector shrinking visibly as many farmers found their trading conditions unsustainable.
"It is hopeless finding ourselves in the middle of a pricing war between the supermarket chains," she said. "They are all obsessed about that the others are doing. We wrote to Asda and got a long letter back, mentioning Tesco six times. They said they had sold more milk when they cut the price, but Tesco had followed suit."
In fact The Great Milk Robbery members wrote to all the major retailers and processors, receiving positive responses from many of the latter, who wished them well in their efforts.
Sally’s family milk goes to a processor in Ilminister. "They told me they would love to pay us more, but to stay in business they have to pay the industry price," she explained.
But it was the buying public who proved the most supportive.
"We were astonished at the ignorasnce of the public to the situation," Sally explained. "So many didn’t know how little we were getting, and many said they couldn’t believe it. But they were all supportive – particularly when we told them that if the British dairy industry collapsed they would be using imported milk powder with English water. All we want is for the processors to pay us 4p per litre more, pass that on to the retailers, who will pass it on to the customers, who are very willing to pay the extra.
"Once dairying is lost in this country we shall never get it back. But losing money on every drop of milk produced cannot continue. Being paid 18.5p per litre is hopeless, when to make any sort of a profit at least 20p is needed by most producers, probably 21p."
Sally Dare exemplifies the attitude of the vast majority of Young Farmers in the Westcountry – a dogged determination to survive and thrive despite the economic odds, a Government that at least is indifferent to the welfare of farmers and at worst downright obstructive, and a fast-changing agricultural world, where time-honoured values and practices are disappearing.
She worries about the future of her own farm, which is a mixed dairy, beef and sheep holding, and of a friendly farming environment for her children to enjoy.
But if sheer determination counts for anything, she (and her kind) are bound to succeed and prosper.
