UK – Speaking today at the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) annual general meeting, Department for Environment and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) chief Margaret Beckett has hinted at huge change in the UK dairy industry.

She added that she would be pushing the Office of Fair Trading to look again at its competition rules.

Beckett said: “It is something that we will have to give much more thought to. For most of my political lifetime, this has been one of the most thorny issues.” She added: “I recognise the considerable concerns that have been raised of the impact of this issue has in the agricultural committee.” The issue is particularly topical in the UK dairy industry, after Zenith Milk and the Milk Group announced an intention to merge last month and amid speculation that Scandinavian dairy co-op Arla is in talks with Express Dairies about a takeover.

Speaking yesterday, chairman of UK dairy United Milk Richard Ashworth said: “The monopolies and mergers commission has severely disadvantaged us [the UK dairy industry] in terms of size.” He also attacked the UK dairy industry, saying that UK processing is “high cost, inefficient processing”. He claimed the costs of this are passed on to the farmer.

In 2000, UK milk giant Milk Marque was forced by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission to split because it controlled 40% of the raw milk market in England and Wales.

The issue of creating sustainability and profitability in the UK dairy and agricultural industry dominated the rest of the NFU’s conference, with much of the emphasis on last week’s policy commission report.

Don Curry, chairman of the report, presented how the report could affect the UK industry this morning. He was attacked by NFU members, who claimed: “The way you have expressed your views has been very different today.” Members also claimed that the report “was too soft on supermarkets”, who farmers allege pay too little for products such as milk.

Reflecting the conference’s theme of sustainability, Beckett said today that as British agriculture works towards sustainability without subsidy there “will be times when we disagree”. She added that “we can’t avoid the modulation debate”, an issue that the NFU last week said it was against.