Dairy crisis

ANOTHER call to rally behind the local dairy industry has been made after it emerged that one of Shetland’s four dairy farmers will stop producing milk.

The move means that Shetland’s own small dairy co-operative will be starved of 20 per cent of its raw material.

Shetland Farm Dairies manager Gerry Byers urged islanders to turn their backs on cheaper imported milk and to support locally produced dairy products instead.

“As I said before many times, it is a matter of either use it or lose it,” he said on Friday.

Earlier this week south mainland farmer Derek Flaws announced that he would leave the dairy industry after producing milk for around 30 years.

He quoted the drop in demand due to fewer oil workers in Shetland and the twice a day, seven days a week commitment as reasons for quitting the industry.

Byers meanwhile said that both the dairy as well as the remaining three dairy farmers desperately needed to invest in their businesses to stay afloat.

“We need a fourth 100 cow dairy farmer, but we also need to contemplate diversifying into other products to use excess milk.

“The dairy here is only a one-product dairy, but if we would have ice-cream or cottage cheese, we could respond more flexibly to changes in supply and demand,” he said.

He said he fully acknowledged that it was a difficult decision to invest when faced with falling sales.

Byers said the time was right for some “soul searching”, and added that local consumers need to consider paying a little extra for locally produced milk, while dairy farmers should modernise their farms to become more efficient.

“I am convinced this still has legs. ‘Can’t’, ‘won’t ‘ and ‘failure’ doesn’t exist in my vocabulary,” he said.

Meanwhile Shetland Butter is back on the shelves after a two-month gap and the dairy’s buttermilk will come in new 500ml bottles later this month.