Country life
In for the long haul
Leanda de Lisle
There was a time when small business- men looked to the Conservative party to champion their interests, and workers to the Labour party. But farmers and hauliers look to each other now. The blockade of an oil refinery at Stanlow brought the Hauliers' and Farmers' Alliance media attention. However, as I was reminded on a picket line this Sunday, fuel costs are only one area in which they have found common cause.
Peripatetic, working-class lorry drivers and stay-at-home, middle-class farmers may not, at first, appear to have much in common. But nearly everything that comes into or goes out of a farm does so by hauli- er. A letter I have from the HFA (North- East) says it was formed because of 'the apparent aim of the UK government to destroy our industries'. The rising cost of fuel is part of that. Government taxes have doubled the price of agricultural diesel in 11 months. Litre for litre, it's almost a third more expensive than milk. The letter also attacked the 'indifference and ineptitude' of their unions and trade bodies.
All attempts to negotiate with the gov- ernment have failed and, while the Road Haulage Association and the National Farmers' Union continue to advocate it, the HFA's aim is to 'pressure ministers into creating a level playing-field with regard to taxation and subsidies across the EU' through direct action. It blocked roads at Manchester in June, Chester in July and Bristol a month ago, to media indifference. Then, at an HFA meeting at a cattle mar- ket in north Wales last week, it heard that the price of fuel was due to go up again. Stanlow oil refinery was targeted immedi- ately. Hauliers have now promised to join farmers' actions at supermarkets and dairies.
I found my way to the Express Dairies depot in Ashby de la Zouch easily enough. As readers of my column may recall, I'd talked to farmers picketing the depot back in May. Supermarkets had forced down the milk processors' prices and they, in turn, had driven down the farmers' price, so that milk that cost 22.49p per litre from the farm was selling for 16.2p. The pickets suc- ceeded in opening negotiations with the processors, but they broke down a couple of weeks ago. This Sunday was the second in a row that Express Dairies had been tar- geted. A tractor was placed across the depot entrance, but it seemed doubtful that it was performing a very necessary task. Lorry drivers tooted their horns in support of the farmers at the barricade before driving off. A picket told me that he had kept one dairy closed for three hours on his own. This time, however, he had the support of at least 100 friends. 'We are just unpaid labour for the supermarkets and the dairy companies,' a dairy farmer told me. He had a cow embroidered on his jacket and spoke proudly of the herd he had built up since 1970, when he had started out with £87. Then he laughed: 'I'll be lucky to end up with £87.'
Another farmer, his brown eyes bright with desperation, told me: 'We don't want to protest. In Derbyshire it really is like All Creatures Great and Small. Dairy farmers just want to get up in the morning and milk their cows. The only outing they expect is a visit to the market. When these people are protesting, something must be wrong.' I asked if he was a dairy farmer. 'I used to be. We used to drive cattle through the vil- lage; it's a pretty village. People came in I don't mind that. We don't have a right to a monopoly on villages. I'm an arable farmer now. But, as I grow feed, if the dairy farmers go bust, so do I.'
The farmer was keen for me to remem- ber the lorry drivers. 'I got an HGV licence to bring a little extra money into the farm. I worked for Sainsbury's. Boy, did I earn my money.' The taxes on fuel damaged farmers and hauliers. 'But this isn't just about fuel. The supermarkets are screwing down the lorry drivers just as they are screwing down us.' It struck me that, in the old Catechism, 'defrauding labourers of their wages' was one of the sins that 'cried out to heaven for vengeance'. We are going to hear a lot about how governments can't give way to blackmail; how the selfish actions of farmers and hauliers mean they don't deserve our sympathy. But I hope they find earthly champions at least.
For those who want to contact me, my e-mail address is leanda@bcdlfreeserve.co.uk; no attachments, please.
Tll quit when it stops being fun.'
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