Retail giant unveils plan to aid Shropshire's dairy farmers

The new four-pint brand – called Milk for Farmers – will be launched in the autumn. It will cost 23p more than a regular four-pinter, and 10p per litre will be given to suppliers signed up with dairy giant Arla.

But the idea has received a mixed response from dairy farmers in the county who say it won't fix their problem of being paid less for their milk than it costs them to produce.

Rod MacBean, who farms in Aston near Wem, said: "My biggest fear is that this is just liquid milk.

"What about other products – cheese, yoghurts, dairy products?

"That is not Morrisons' issue but it does not make it fair to all dairy farmers if it only applies to dairy farmers who supply milk through Arla to Morrisons. This is good news for them, but there are an awful lot of others."

Morrisons announced the plans after a crisis meeting yesterday between farming organisations including the NFU and Farmers For Action and directors at the supermarket. Martyn Jones, corporate services director at Morrisons, said: "We recognise that the current market for liquid milk is impacting on hard-working dairy farmers and their families.

"We want to reassure the industry that the retail price we charge for Morrisons milk reflects the highly competitive retail market.

"It is not linked to the price we pay our milk suppliers.

"We want to offer practical help by launching a range of four-pint milk at a retail premium of 10p per litre, all of which will be passed back directly to dairy farmers.

"We will stock this product in all our stores, offering our customers the choice to support dairy farmers directly. We also want to clarify that our current three-year contract with Arla, which supplies the majority of our milk, uses a cost model that automatically adjusts the price that we pay for milk, based on a combination of the independently-set farm gate price and other commodities such as diesel and plastics that influence the cost of milk.

"We can confirm that we have asked our milk suppliers not to pass on further decreases in the current farm gate price to us, but to share any benefit with the dairy farmer instead."