The Farmers’ Union of Wales yesterday welcomed the Tories plan – revealed at the Oxford Farming Conference – to appoint a supermarket ombudsman but described the move as long overdue.
“As far back as the 2001 foot and mouth disease outbreak even Prime Minister Tony Blair was saying supermarkets had farmers in an ‘arm-lock’ and wielded too much power,” said FUW president Gareth Vaughan.
“At the time the FUW welcomed his comments, too, but made the point that despite his rhetoric he had failed to take practical action to assist farmers and other suppliers.”
Since then the FUW has repeatedly called for a supermarket ombudsman and, in April 2008, described the Competition Commission’s bid to create an independent Ombudsman to enforce a strengthened Groceries Supply Code of Practice as a major step forward in efforts to curb the dominance of the large supermarket chains.
“But, regrettably, there is still no such ombudsman in place even though we had been pressing for a fresh investigation into the practices employed by the large supermarket companies long before the Office of Fair Trading asked the Competition Commission to investigate the issue in 2006,” added Mr Vaughan.
“The Commission fully endorsed our campaign which followed bitter complaints from farmers and other suppliers over many years that their prices were being forced down to satisfy the demands of these companies to make even bigger profits for their shareholders.
“We were heartened when Wales’ Rural Affairs Minister Elin Jones expressed her support in December 2007 for an Ombudsman to regulate supermarkets and called for the existing voluntary Code of Conduct to be updated and strengthened.
“The FUW still maintains an independent Ombudsman, coupled with compliance officers employed by supermarkets to oversee the implementation of the new code, will be a major step forward in ensuring supermarkets provide a fair deal for all suppliers, including farmers.”
During the Oxford Farming Conference shadow environment spokesman Nick Herbert said the voluntary code of practice governing the relationship between supermarkets and food suppliers is not “worth the paper it is written on” unless properly enforced.
“It is not enough to talk loosely about a fair market or the need for better labelling. We need action, with a supermarket ombudsman and legislation to enforce honest labelling if the retailers won’t act.”
