THE dairy industry is demanding that MPs take action to persuade retailers and the food industry to buy British in a bid to halt in the increasing trade deficit in the sector.

The Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers (RABDF) spoke out following the collapse of the Dairy Farmers of Britain (DFB) co-operative and the closure of its final three dairies last week, including the Blaydon site which employed almost 300 people and received milk from 288 farmers.

The UK has gone from being a net exporter of dairy products a decade ago to a net importer now.

Although the UK still exports dairy commodity products, the country imports higher value goods from overseas.

RABDF chairman Lyndon Edwards said: “UK milk production has dwindled during the past decade from 14.06 billion litres to 12.8 billion litres, a trend which has been influenced by falling farm gate prices and the increasingly unfair distribution of margins within the supply chain – retail share has increased from 6ppl to 16.5ppl during that period.

“Consequently, we are becoming increasingly dependent on imported dairy added-value products, whilst being content to export commodity products and a diminishing volume at that. UK dairy production has fallen to a 40-year low at a time when domestic consumption of dairy product is increasing at almost 0.5% per year.

“Unless UK dairy farmers are given the confidence to reinvest, then production will continue to decline at its current rate of 2.5% per year. By 2030, levels may reach 7.5 billion litres resulting in the need to import 53% of our dairy products to meet projected consumption needs.”

During 2008, the UK imported 1.1m tonnes of dairy produce at an average cost of £1,818 per tonne, while the country exported around 865,000 tonnes of dairy products, which were worth a significantly lower £918 per tonne.

Mr Edwards said that the trade gap has recently become more pronounced with imports rising much more quickly than exports.

Imports rose from £1.53bn in 2005 to £1.99bn in 2008, while exports over the same period grew from £42m to £784m.