The Great Milk Rip-Off: Why You’re Paying More and Farmers are Getting Less

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1:02Let's be honest. We've all felt the cost of living crisis lately. The prices on our weekly shop are going up, up and up. And butter and dairy is a huge part of that. We're seeing lumps of butter for four, five pounds, and it is eye watering. But what's actually going on? You'd assume that with the increase of price of dairy, dairy farmers are doing fantastically. But on the other hand, all we hear is that dairy farmers are struggling and they're closing down their businesses and they can't afford to survive. So where is the money going? Let's get into the unprocessed truth and delve into the dairy industry so that you can understand where your milk pennies are going and how we can shop better to support British funds.

1:52Welcome to this week's episode of the Unprocessed Truth and this week we're going to get into a conversation that I've been waiting to have for a long time about the dairy industry and the state of British farming and how we can help our farms produce better, healthier food at more affordable prices. And today's guest is one of the most outspoken people I have found in British farming, which is amazing because I like getting to the truth of what's really going on and what's happening behind the scenes. But you were a former city trader playing in the global commodity game and now you're kind of exposing the industry with your own business, Concept Dairy.

2:30So, let's get into it. Thank you for joining me on the podcast, Dermud. It's great to have you. How are you doing? I'm really good. I'm delighted to be here and thanks for having me. And I love your work as well, you know, in the supermarkets. Well, I end up being supermarket warriors as well, but probably explain a little bit about Concept Dairy, how it came about. So, you mentioned that commodities trading. That's my background. So trading electricity and gas for banks in London, trading companies. And I was doing that for a while. And then I was headhunted to move back home to Ireland to run the trading for a company called Ornua.

3:04So Ornua is Kerrygold butter. So Ornua exports over half of Irish dairy products all over the world. So into the UK, let's say 90 ,000 tons of cheese. That's a lot of cheese coming into the UK. And when I was there, I figured, hang on, there's a better way to do this. because farmers are always price takers. They never know if they're going to get paid. And I said, okay, well, let's create the technology, take the technology from the oil and gas sector and bring it into dairy and give farmers visibility on how much their milk is actually worth and locking in prices and all that. And that's where we started off.

3:39And it was great at the start. We had lots of interest from the processors. But then we realized their business model has really screwed the farmer because at the end of the day, imagine you're buying a product and you can pay your suppliers whatever you want and that's the reality of dairy farmers never know they're going to get paid so let's let's start there then in terms of like how does milk end up on the supermarket shelf what's the full supply chain from farm via a processor to the supermarket and how much it costs like who's making the decisions on that chain how does it work so let's let's wind it back to milk what what what milk is milk is fat and protein that's the first bit so everyone's like when you look at milk goes into your supermarket has a shelf life and that's great so the farmer milks milks they whatever they do with their animals they get more fat more protein depending on what their buyer does and that gets picked up by the milk processor in the truck goes around all the different farms and then goes back to the plant and then gets processed in whatever way now there's different parts of how milk gets process it's very like oil so you get oil comes in oil comes in you get diesel jet fuel gasoline kerosene all the various different parts milk is very similar so you get yogurts then you get cheese but then when you get cheese you also get a byproduct called whey so historically whey was used to feed the pigs but now they've found another way well actually it's got high protein so now it's used for sports and sushi exactly and then you get you get so you get cream so the cream gets taken off the top.

5:17That's the fat. So the cream gets taken off the top and you've got protein left. So then you've got skim milk, the green top, and you get cream. Now, if you've got too much cream, you mix it up and turn it into butter. So one of the really important things to realize is when you process the cream into butter, well, the shelf life goes up to two years. The cheese shelf life changes dramatically because that, it's depending on what you've got, a mild, medium or mature cheddar. And then you go into all the various different components of it. But then milk also comes in and gets dried into milk powder.

5:54Yeah. And that can have a much longer shelf life. So the farmer has no part to play in that. They literally are just selling you raw milk. Exactly. It's a commodity. And this is one of the key issues is that they don't want to recognize that it is a commodity. and farmers work so hard to produce it and which is really high quality milk. But at the end of the day, whatever stream it goes into, it's a commodity. Now, some processors, let's say like Arla, have loads of brands and they do really well and they balance out the exposure. So you have loads of brands and then you've got a bit of commodity, whereas some of the other companies are highly exposed to the commodity markets.

6:36Okay, so then the processor takes it, they decide whether it's going to be into different forms whatever and then the retailer buys it but typically when there's been you know campaigns about british farming and price of milk and whatever the supermarket tends to get the blame but are you saying it's actually the processor that's calling the shots yeah the processor calls a lot of shots and this is a really really important point because it's really easy to blame the supermarkets because they're there we're in the supermarket we're buying we can see the milk but we we work with lots of supermarkets and they actually love what we're doing which believe it or not because you imagine your supermarket and you've got also have a petrol station four court so you're told okay well diesel is one pound fifty a liter and then they go to the supermarket goes out to shell or bp one of these big oil joints go i'm only going I think they're£1.10.

7:30They'll be like, hey, tell you where to go. Yeah. But if the same supermarket is buying cheese, they say, okay, what's the price of cheese? Well, you can pick up your phone now and you can tell me what the price of oil is straight away. Yeah. But no one knows the price of cheeses. So then the supermarket has to go out and find the lowest bidder to find where the market is. Right. So there's no transparency in price. So you can see global coffee prices, global chocolate prices, global oil prices, but you can't see global dairy prices. Some dairy prices, but certain products you can't. Okay. And this is the issue.

8:03This is where we see farmers get taken advantage of. The processors, they're okay, but it's a race to the bottom usually, and that's where the farmers really get. The farmers, because there's no impact on the processor, because the processor can pay the farmer whatever they want. Right. So the processor's in the middle. As long as they sell the volume, they don't really care. And they set the price. Yeah. So because how's it work? because everyone's going into the supermarket now seeing butter prices through the roof, milk prices going up and up and up. Like, surely the farmers are doing well because everything's getting more expensive and more money's flowing down through the chain.

8:40So this is where it's so disjointed. So the consumer, so in Waitrose at the moment, 500 grams is six pounds, right? 500 grams of what? Of butter is six pounds. Of butter is six pounds. So that's a kilo is 12 pounds. Yeah. of packed butter on the shelf the consumer's paying. At the moment, butter is just at four. It's four pounds. Well, actually four euros. So it's actually about three pounds, 60 a kilo. That's the commodity price for butter. So the consumer's paying 12. And the wholesale price is 3.6. 3.6. And this is where the farmer's getting 3.6. Right. The consumer's getting 12. And this is where it's so disjointed.

9:25And that's the margin for the processor and the supermarket. The supermarket. Now, we have to caveat that because the market was, like 18 months ago, nearly at 8 euros, 8 pounds a kilo, 8 euros a kilo. And now that's what drove the prices up. But that disconnect is where the problems lie. And this is where the commodity trading bit comes in to protect the farmer. When the prices are high, they lock in the margin in the background. Right, because what you're saying what's happened now is the price went really high up to eight. Supermarkets all put their prices up for butter. We all saw it. Now it's come back down on a commodity basis so the farmer's getting less money but the supermarket and the consumer is still paying the same.

10:08The prices haven't come down. Yeah, they haven't. I was in the supermarket yesterday just to check and it's crazy. And this is where now, so now the milk price is below the cost of production. so now it costs farmers more to produce the milk than they're getting paid for it and this is this is where it doesn't make any sense and this probably leads into one of the biggest issues for agriculture at the moment is to encourage young farmers into into being a dairy farmer to produce more right because it's basic supply and demand you if we want cheaper prices at the shelf for food we need to make more well there's a massive oversupply at the moment of dairy globally huge because the price has been so high for so long that farmers produce more and it's a crash but the thing is when the prices are high so let me give you an example from ireland and it's probably easier to talk so the farmers let's say last february march the farmers got paid 50 54 cents a liter for and they turned it into cheese and that cheese sits in the warehouse because it has to mature for let's say nine months and now this price of cheese let's say it's for 35p the processor can only sell the cheese for 35p but they pay the farmer 54 for it there's a big disconnect there so what happens is well instead of the farmer getting 34p they get that difference taken out of nub check so it's I call it screw the farmer risk management rather than actually so what we do is my background in trading and all that is we get we show the processors how to risk manage using derivatives all that kind of stuff and hedging and all that kind of fancy stuff.

11:45And that's why we set up Concept Dairy to do that. But we've seen that the industry doesn't want to change because they can get away with the STF, risk management, screw the farmer, risk management. Wow. So take a pint of milk or two pints of milk is about£1.20 today. How much does a farmer get of that? It depends which farmer. So let's say at the moment Ireland are paying about 35p. 35p, yeah. And they're the best. And you're saying that's below cost. Oh, yeah. It costs about$42. $42. So, for example, now we've heard that Muller yew tree farmers are going to be paid, listen to this, one pea a litre for February, March and April.

12:29Do you know the Muller Crunch Corners? Yeah. That company? Yeah. Same company will pay some of their farmers one pea a litre for some of their milk for those months. But how can they get away with that? Surely the farmer can just go, I'm not selling it to you. they can't because this is it they're they're they're tied with their contracts they have to give notice to mother so mother can get away with it but they have to give six months notice or three months notice and say okay and they can't go anywhere because a farmer can't you can't sell your milk to anybody else so i don't know i did a post there back early last year about farmers having to dump their milk so farmers had to dump their milk for two weeks solid no communication from the co-op from the processor nothing didn't know what was going on they didn't even know if going to get paid what did someone told them they had to dump their milk yeah well there's no well there's no there's no truck coming into the yard oh so that no there's nothing processor just didn't come and collect milk so then they just had to throw it away because it was going to go bad yeah wow and that's and that's the reality like it's crazy how you know the the farmers work so hard and they don't know how much they're going to get paid and in this case didn't even know if their milk's going to get collected but so you're saying it's the power balance or this is what i would take from it is the power balance of the mullers the alas these big global dairy conglomerates that can just do what they want write the contracts how they want them and kind of yeah rig the system in a way that the farmer gets screwed at the end yeah exactly and that's happened now we've had legislation in the uk that's come in it's called the milk purchasing code it came in last july it's it's compulsory and unfortunately i've seen some of the contracts and they actually weaponized nearly against the farmers they've put in all kinds of other clauses about carbon and green stuff and having to do carbon it's just it's it's so unfair on farmers because they're already stretched now they're being paid below the cost of production and they still have to do all this other stuff so it's yeah it's quite unfair on them and that's the government you're saying yeah written because one of the things that i have a bugbear with is then you know there's been a lot in the press about labor supporting farmers or not supporting farmers in this instance and their rebuttal always is no but we're investing three billion or whatever it is this year into british farms to help farmers but then they're writing dodgy contracts with other things in them like are they supporting farmers what's your take

14:57it's a tough question because in certain ways there's various different like sustainable farming initiative and all this stuff where they can do various things but for the if you're a big farmer you've got a bit more cash you've got more resources you've got more staff you can pay people to do this for you if you're a small farmer it doesn't really help you and like that legislation that came in um it's pretty much pointless no point it's actually been it's actually the farmers are worse off like farmers are still getting paid one p a litre yeah no change and what we need is a proper audit of all those milk contracts that have been designed and sent out to farmers because they have to have them with with with the farmer but the key element of these contracts they have to be mutually agreed so what happens if they don't agree well they get they're quite nervous because then who else is going to pick up their milk so they're nearly forced to sign these contracts i've seen the letters from the processors to the farmers saying oh you have to sign this contract by this date but there's no mutual discussion there's no agreement and we've you know the NFU you're probably quite familiar with it and like great people but I was at one of their one of their launch events and I asked well is the NFU going to produce a contract the farmers can use on their side and you get two contracts you come together and negotiate oh no no we'll just review whatever the processor sends you like how fair is that like it's so it's so rigged so it's one side yeah it's so one-sided so how do we change this because i think that's what you're trying to do with all your social content and trying to give the farmers more of a voice it if the government have an ambition to help farmers what do they need to do in this dairy code of conduct to make it work well i think first you need to do a full audit of them all go in and say right guys i want to see your contracts um And one of the most is mandatory price reporting.

16:52So we have transparency. So if I buy a block of cheese off you and I'm a wholesaler, well, you're going to send me an invoice. Yeah. So I know what the price is. That needs to be reported somewhere. They do it in the US. They do it all over the world where it has to be reported. So if I'm trading oil or gas with you, there's legally a requirement to actually, everyone sees what the price of that transaction was. If I trade a stock, everyone knows that you trade the stock. And cheese, no one knows. Interesting. So if you know what the price of cheese is or whatever product we're talking about, yogurt, butter, whatever, then we can say, okay, my milk price should be X.

17:27Yeah. And if you don't have that, well, it's like it's what we call it, the milk price casino. Milk price casino. I like that. But Jesus, I mean, it sounds horrendous with people pouring milk away when we think we need more. What about how does milk prices and what's happened with beef prices relate? because we've done a few videos on the price of mincemeat and beef at the moment and it's gone through the roof and my understanding is it's a simple supply and demand equation where less farmers are farming beef for meat and our demand and consumption of red meat has actually gone up so it's just put strain on the whole system is that a similar problem is it a different problem what's your take on the side of it actually it's a really good point because at the end of the the cycle of a dairy cow ends up going into the supply chain, the beef supply chain.

18:16Yeah. And if you look, the price of an animal has just nearly doubled in the past two or three years because of that. And, you know, I think what we've seen is we've seen a lot of move away from veganism into proper carnivore diets, you know, like whole foods, proper protein. And I think that is, I think that's really where the demand, a lot of the demand's coming from. there are less cows but more efficiency but then you're going to have more exports coming in so there's this Mercosur deal I don't know if you've heard of it it's a deal that's between the EU and Brazil, Argentina and Panama. To bring in Argentinian beef.

18:59Yeah and the Farmers Journal in Ireland did an expose on it so they went into the vets into the veterinary supplies and they're able to buy medicines that are banned in the UK and Ireland. They have to buy them off the counter. They've literally found contaminated beef in Ireland last year. If it's coming into Ireland, even the EU, it's going to come into the UK as well. Of course, yeah. This is where it's a global supply and demand. This is where it's a commodity. You don't know what those animals have been fed. In the UK and Ireland, all over Europe, it's very, very strict control of what you can feed your animals what you what what what medication you can give them because the end of the day comes into our supply chain so it's so important that's when it's to support local to support local farmers you know that little red tractor logo it's really important to respect that and see it it's on the pack so you touched on an interesting point which i'm sure a lot of people want to get into around bovir because it's what you're feeding the cow makes an impact on what you're consuming at the end of the day we live in a food chain right what they eat we effectively what's your take on bovir i think it's huh i've probably quite biased in my view but what we've done is you've spoken to a lot of professionals about it and ask them their opinion and a lot of them won't come on record about it because they worried about their next a lot of academics they're worried about their next source of funding for it but if you go back to the supply chain and the food is it necessary to put Beauvoir in the food, in the supply chain.

20:37It doesn't need to get declared as part of the supply chain because it's classified as an animal feed supplement. Yeah. And the company behind it, we're delighted that it got classified, didn't have to go through all the testing. So there's a lot there, and I need to caveat this because there's a lot of money going into Beauvoir. The Scottish government have invested in helping them build a plant up there and everything else, but if you wind it all back, if you go back to my old days of gas and power trade, like gas trading and all that, when you measure methane emissions, well, to get natural gas out of the ground, it's hundreds of years of decomposition in the ground and then the gas comes out and you use it.

21:18Yeah. For a cow to produce a burp, it goes up in the carb, it goes in CH4, it gets broken down, comes back as carbon dioxide, photosynthesis, the cows eat the grass, the grass grows, the cow does a poo, there's a big cycle part of the carbon cycle it's 12 years so is the emission from a dairy cow or any agricultural animal the same as methane coming out of the gas and you know when we were looking at when you look at gas emission you know when you switch on your gas hub you turn on the gas for a second and it hits and you hit the light button like that much gas is probably it's a significant amount in comparison to what the cows are actually mean.

22:01A lot of cow burps. And then all the different connectors of all the gas pipelines going into all the houses and all those loose connections and all that. Like, there's a lot of questions. But the problem is the agriculture sector is pretty much useless in defending itself against this. So they're basically told they have to do it. Yeah, yeah. So if you look at, there are some amazing processes out there. It's like, no, we're not using Beauvoir. We're going to work with our farmers. Do things, like, there's a company called Barber's Cheese down in Devon. Yeah. amazing brilliant cheese they work with their farmers they communicate really well and it's fantastic you've got um first milk which is another which is another um pro another co-op in scotland and also in wales they produce this brand called golden who regenerative farming it's brilliant they don't use bovair little secret a lot of the tesco own label cheese has probably come from first milk oh really yeah okay yeah so your take on it is bovir is an unnecessary feed additive to make money rather than helping the environment hey exactly so what who benefits from bovir it's a great question the people who make it probably them also farmers to pay for it eventually they don't pay for it now because it's been subsidized but the supermarket or whoever the supply chain ends up says oh we're saving 30 emissions yeah so it's a nice halo marketing claim but it doesn't benefit the farmer the farmer might get an extra three cents a leader for doing it for for doing all the sustainability initiatives so two years ago i was at a conference and the head of sustainability environmental uh lady called hannah sunenberg spoke about the Arla program on sustainability.

23:46Yeah. Invested 270 million in this program in a year. Wow. And then we had a kind of a fire, there was a fire, so I chat, and then she said, oh, we saved 618 ,000 tons of emissions. I was like, okay, great. So I worked it back. Mm. And I said, okay, well, this is a very, very rough kind of calculation, but the cost of reducing emissions by 30 % on a farm was around 14, 15p a litre. Mm. So we're like, hang on, we don't want to pay the farmers that. The industry doesn't want to pay. So what do we do? Well, we'll put in Bolvar instead and see if that works. Companies like Arla can make the change.

24:23And it's so important that they know what to do. They know how to do it properly. So what you're saying is nice ECG sustainability objectives at a big corporate Arla level, rather than invest in the way the farmers farm and put, I don't know, more trees, more solar panels, more efficient equipment on a farm, which is investing tangibly into something that's going to make a difference. They're just like, well, stick some feed additive in and we can make the claim and everybody wins. Exactly. And one of the things you need to point out with Beauvoir, it isn't effective on a pasture-based system.

25:00So a pasture-based system is a system where the cows are eating grass. Yeah. And then, because you can't put Beauvoir in the grass, it'll just blow away. So it doesn't work. Now, grass-fed is a bit different. So there's various different categories in how animals are. Some farmers have their animals in a barn, and then they get feed grass into the barn, so they can put bulwark in there. So it's very, very different in every different country. And one of the things that we were, it's been, we've heard rumours anecdotally, we've seen some videos, you might have seen them on YouTube, from Denmark.

25:36so Denmark have made it legislated that farmers who have over 50 cows have to feed their cows a methane inhibitor like Beauvier right so that's when when I own a supermarket and I say okay the little DK on the top means Denmark that the that the product has been made in Denmark so there is definitely Beauvier well yeah well yeah more than likely if it's had 50 more cows but the thing is we only know where it's been processed that label only doesn't tell us the origin of the milk. Now, you can do it. It's quite easy. But factories choose not to. Because if you just say, well, we're just going to use this factory wherever it is in Denmark, they can bring in products from anywhere with the same label.

26:21But if you have to, and this is the other thing, what can we do is proper labeling of knowing exactly where your milk has come from. Which farm? So the labeling of milk just tells you where the processor is, not where the farm is. Exactly. So there's a disconnect there. So they could be buying, I don't know, dodgy milk from somewhere. and it's not even danish well exactly and then that's where like the what happens is you might get a big block of cheese just slice it and you can stick a uk label on it off you go uh and the milk might be danish yeah maybe danish milk could be polish milk could be anywhere so do you avoid bovir yeah milk yeah well the safest way is organic but so do you do that for your health yeah we just don't know what it is you know like we were told people were told years ago that smoking was safe you know yeah and then we've had the report in the last few weeks about glyphosate.

27:05Yeah. You know, oh, it's not safe now, all the numbers are rigged. You know, it's kind of, and if you look at some of the reports that they got the Food Safety Authority approval on, one of the reports was done, I think the cows were tested for eight weeks, but one of them had to be put down. Two cows, one had to be put down and it was approved. Well, because there was some stuff in the press recently about like some of the cows are dropping dead in Denmark and farmers are starting to ask why, what's going on and is it the bovir? Well, it potentially is. Well, because what happens is, you know, you've got, cows have got four stomachs.

27:34Yeah. Because we can't eat grass as humans, but cows can produce grass into liquid gold. It's amazing. But what happens is if you feed Beauvoir, you're breaking down emissions and cows can get bloated because they've got four stomachs and they can die from it. Die from bloating? Yeah. So you look at the chemical breakdown of CH4, which is methane, into the various different components. Massive questions to be asked, but there's no real independent research out there. So the argument could be, I don't understand enough about cow's stomachs, but essentially if you're testing in your scientific study how much methane are they producing, it might be less because it's getting stuck in their own body and then causing them health issues.

28:21Yeah, exactly. There's so many questions about it. And if you look at a cow, some of the tests, a cow produces on average milk for about 305 days a year. The rest is for the next cycle. But the testing wasn't done for that full cycle. So when you're feeding the cow bovair, they also usually have a calf as well. So you don't know the effect on the calf. And there's a massive animal welfare issue here as well because a cow probably produces two, three years of calves to produce the milk. Has the research been done into that and the effects on the calves? Because bovair hasn't been approved for beef yet.

29:02no it hasn't and this is the thing that is really important is that when those farmers when they go to sell their animals if their animals have been fed bovair they might be worth absolutely zero because of that people say well it's not you fed your your animal bovair um and now it's worth zero because the beef beef factory won't take it won't take it interesting that they've approved it for milk but not beef yeah but then you hear about the governments are kind of going like Denmark have just gone right mandatory everyone do it I apparently hear the UK want to bring it in by 2030 and it's just going to become part of our dairy beef world supply chain.

29:42Is that dangerous? I don't know enough about it. I don't know enough about the science. I'm not a scientist. There's so much publicly available information there. It's up to the independent, like properly independent research entities to prove that it's not. and how it was approved as a feed supplement for animals. If you feed your cow an antibiotic, it gets registered and it's a huge cycle. They won't pick up your milk. It's quite strict. So to get it, not having to go through that. And also you're relying on the dosage the farmer gives the animal as well. So if the farmer's had a few pints and not before and he's putting in the Beauvoir and he puts in the wrong dosage, then it comes into the milkshake.

30:28Yeah, in a different context. So there's no need to put it in full stop. Well, and I think that's part of the thing people need to understand is, you know, you'll get the argument online. It's safe. It's been studied. It's been tested. It's been approved. It's fine. But what you're saying is, A, the testing wasn't done on the full life cycle of milk production or over several years. It was just done on a short window. and B, who was running those tests were financially incentivized because they make money from selling bovis, so they want to do the safety tests and prove that it's fine and prove that it reduces methane.

31:05So we haven't had the full kind of independent scientific community look at it, study it long term with proper controls in place that would define whether this is good or bad. As a consumer, I ask questions. you know and a lot of consumers have asked and this is why it's blown up and the the dairy and the dairy industry the way they've managed it has been just horrific a p.r. disaster and it's why it affects his farmers because the consumer is worried it's like what what's safe well you know i won't buy milk anymore well but you said the simple way is by organic because that's guaranteed to be over free yeah but then also look at the little stamp of origin avoid dk dairy because most likely it's going to contain milk.

31:52The other really interesting point is organic milk prices have stayed consistent, up at 56 per litre and conventional has dropped to 34. So there's a huge premium now farmers are getting for organic, which is great to see and it's probably a function of that. I call it the organic conventional split or spread and the farmers want to make the decision to go from conventional into organic, well there's a premium there you can get You can get more money but surely it costs them more to farm organically? A little bit more not as much as you think it is it's just changing a lot of things but then they definitely won't be using Beauvoir and the other thing is their beef will be organic at the end of it too.

32:42So they should get more money for that. So would you recommend farmers go organic? at the moment yeah i would i think it's a good option because the milk price has only gone one way at the moment um but i think the the organic is is definitely uh almost stable well and i always say like we can vote with our wallet it's so powerful if we all just go out of our way and spend a little bit more money on organic cheese milk yogurt whatever it is that will maintain the demand that maintain price and more farmers switch into organic and actually potentially create more supply and bring down the price of organic even and just make it the mainstay in dairy like it should be really because it's better for the environment and it's better for i think everybody's health really we don't need pesticides in certain places yeah i can make a degree and i think you're the nutrition expert so which is and it's important about understanding that the effect and what reading makes such a big difference.

33:38And I 100 % agree, it's consumers voting with their wallet, what you put in your trolley, what you click in your online shop. And that's something that we need to get on the online shopping. You never get that little logo of where it's actually made on the online shopping versus being in the supermarket and looking at it. You can't see it. Interesting. Well, I want to take it back a bit to the farmers and how we can support them more because we've obviously had the whole inheritance tax rowback most recently from labor where they're increasing the limits and not hitting as many small farms with inheritance tax but in terms of dairy farmers in the uk i've got it here that says we've got about 7 000 dairy farms in the uk which is an 85 drop since the 80s do you think farming is about to go extinct what is going on unless the industry changes fundamentally it's going to go extinct oh not going to go extinct but it's going to decrease we need food we need food but the thing is farmers if you look the average age of a farmer is about 63 to 65 wow young people don't want to get into it so let's say you want to be a farmer tomorrow morning oh A I wouldn't know where to start and B I'd assume you'd need loads of money to buy all the land yeah we'd buy at least the land you'd probably need about 1-2 million pounds to do it wow so you go to the bank you pay your interest rate, you pay your repayments every month.