Farmers join chorus of concern over food price cap – Daily Business

Alistair Carmichael: backing farmers’ concerns

Farmers have added their opposition to SNP leader John Swinney’s plan to cap the price of essential food items.

The National Farmers’ Union Scotland has written to the First Minister, while the chair of the Shetland Livestock Marketing Group, Cecil Eunson, has also expressed concern.

Mr Eunson warned that “nobody believes that the supermarkets will take the hit, that hit will be passed on to the primary producer”.

The plan was announced by Mr Swinney at the SNP manifesto launch earlier this month. He said it would bring down the cost of a number of food items to help those struggling with the cost of living.

However, it immediately came in for criticism from the Scottish Retail Consortium which described it as a “potty gimmick” and the Institute for Public Policy Research.

Fergus Ewing, a former SNP food minister, described the food price cap on items such as milk and bread as “half baked”, and warned it could break competition law.

Orkney and Shetland LibDem MP Alistair Carmichael has now backed farmers’ concerns.

As chair of the Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee, he said: “The National Farmers’ Union Scotland have made their concerns clear both nationally and in the Northern Isles that even if it worked as intended, the cost of this price cap policy would fall on farmers, crofters and other primary food producers.

“It also risks undermining the viability of small country shops which are vital to our communities in the Northern Isles.

Andrew Opie, director of food and sustainability at the British Retail Consortium told the committee: “First, it is totally unnecessary. I spoke earlier about how we already have the lowest grocery prices in western Europe, so competition is working.

“The point that you can drive some kind of intervention with some 1970s price controls is just a fallacy; it just does not work.

“We will probably end up with producers losing out, or producers dropping out of the market, and people will not get the choice that they have at the moment.

“Leave it to the market because the market works really well. All the independent assessments of the UK grocery market confirm that.”

Of 28 European nations, prices in the UK were the seventh cheapest. Only Hungary, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Poland, Slovakia and Romania were cheaper.

#Farmers #join #chorus #concern #food #price #cap #Daily #Business