Orkney and Shetland MP, Alistair Carmichael yesterday (Wednesday, March 19) introduced the Food Supply Chain Fairness Bill in the UK parliament.
The bill is intended to introduce a range of provisions to get fairer prices for farmers and food producers across the UK.
It includes strengthening the Groceries Code Adjudicator (GCA) in terms of remit and resources, supporting greater public procurement of locally produced food, and enhanced origin labelling requirements.
In his speech, Carmichael said the market for agricultural produce in the UK has not been a free market since the end of the Second World War.
Carmichael stated that as a consequence the market today features supermarkets at the top, with hundreds of thousands of farmers at the bottom, and a variety of processors distributors and others in the middle.
“Everyone takes their cut and then, at the end of it all, the farmers get whatever is left,” the MP said.
Carmichael said that shortly after the autumn budget he met with a group of young farmers from his constituency.
“They were despondent in pointing out to me that their businesses earned a net profit of 0.7% on their capital,” he said.
“They were not much cheered up when I pointed out that they were doing better than many of their contemporaries, as Defra figures say that the average return is as low as 0.5%.”
Carmichael, who is the chair of the environment, food and rural affairs committee said elsewhere in the UK the removal of money that was ringfenced to be given to devolved administrations, has left farmers feeling vulnerable to adverse change.
Carmichael criticised the limitations of the GCA, stating that it had not administered a fine in the entirety of its existence.
The MP cited a YouGov poll on the GCA that found 42% of suppliers would not raise issues because they believed that the retailer would find out and that there would be consequences.
He also said that recent reports that Asda was threatening a price war were a ‘chilling prospect’ for farmers.
“If supermarkets are about to embark on a race to the bottom then we can be pretty sure that it will be farmers, not company executives or shareholders who will take the hit,” he added.
The bill has support across the House of Commons with members of Labour, the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru, the Scottish National Party, Greens, and Democratic Unionists named as sponsors of the bill.
It will have its second reading on Friday, June 20.
