THE PRESS MONDAY, APRIL 10, 1978. The price of milk

Press, 10 April 1978, Page 16

THE PRESS MONDAY, APRIL 10, 1978. The price of milk

No price rise which increases the cost of providing a family with the basic foodstuffs needed for sound nutrition can be welcomed. Yet consumers would be wise to accept, without too much crumbling, the further small increase in the price of milk which will come into effect on May 1. The Government had no choice if it was going to recognise the way that farmers’ costs are rising. It had to approve a higher payment to dairy farmers who produce milk for town supplv Even now the increase will be much lower than the farmers had sought. The Government could have absorbed this inescapable payment by increasing the subsidy on milk But this subsidy, although it can, perhaps, be justified on the grounds that milk is valuable to health, especially the health of children, must be kept within reasonable bounds unless other Government expenditure is to be cut. Few people are offering suggestions to that end.

An increase of a cent a bottle in the price of milk will probably not deter many consumers from buying the same amount of milk as before. But to have abandoned efforts to keep the subsidy on milk as low as possible would not, in the long run. have done much good to the consumers, most of whom also pay taxes

The best reason for consumers not to jib at the increase, and one which should be acceptable even to those who find it difficult to see objections to large subsidies on foodstuffs, is that at 10c a bottle, milk will remain one of the best possible buys. Measuring food value against cost, the benefit of milk wins hands down against almost any other food purchase. Against other drinks

which have value in the average diet it is indisputably cheap. Against those which confer little dietary benefit it is a bargain.

Milk sales have dropped a little since milk began to rise from the old price of 4c a bottle. But the drop in consumption may not have been as great as the drop in sales: the price is now sufficiently high to discourage waste. Even so. the price is not yet high enough to be a real discouragement to consume. If some domestic budgets are so strained that economies are needed to keep up milk consumption, there are other items in the shopping baskets of most householders which could be put aside without harm, and possibly with benefit, to nutritional standards. The Government estimates that if the subsidy were removed entirely, milk would probably cost the consumer more than 15c a bottle. This would still be cheap by world standards. This is a price at which milk consumption might begin to decline significantly and to the detriment of the standard of health of the country’s children—and adults.

The costs of producing and distributing milk are not going to decline. Even while the subsidy is maintained at today’s level the 15c bottle of milk may not be too far away. If, at that point, milk seems to be pricing itself off the tables of many families, the time will have come to give serious thought to altering the whole system of town milk supply. The answer will probably lie in introducing reconstituted milk in the winter months when it is difficult, and expensive, to maintain supplies of fresh milk.