CUMBRIAN farmers got militant this week by joining a national three-day strike to push for fairer farm gate prices, reports Jennie Dennett.

Members of lobby-group Farmers for Action held back milk, meat and vegetables from Wednesday to put pressure on retailers to give farmers a better return for their product.

On Thursday FFA said around 2,000 people had taken part across the UK including some in Cumbria, although it was not clear exactly how many had withheld produce.

The action is part of an FFA campaign with further strikes and protests planned in the run-up to Christmas to disrupt retail supplies.

Kendal dairyman Mike Packham, the Cumbria spokeman for the FFA, has been dumping the milk from his 150-strong dairy herd since Wednesday.

"It's not something we want to do but we have been driven to it," he said. "It's reacting to a grass roots desire to do something, there's been quite a few ringing me up saying they want to join."

Chief among their complaints is the persistence of poor milk prices that have left 60 per cent of the UK's dairy farmers selling milk at below the cost of production.

The power of the supermarkets has been blamed for locking dairy processors into a price war pushing farm gate prices ever lower.

Dairy farmers have been increasingly hanging-up their boots with 12,000 in business this year compared to 15,313 in 2002. The pattern has been replicated in South Lakeland for example around Selside, Mr Packham said there used to be 12 dairy farms but now there were only three.

The FFA is also criticising supermarket buying policies for favouring cheap food imports over British produce.

The National Farmers Union has not backed the strike action under the Competition Act 1998 it would be liable to have its assets stripped if it encouraged its members to strike.

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