NFU President Peter Kendall has drawn on experience in the UK to encourage farming organisations across the EU and North America to campaign for tough and effective measures to deter and punish the abuse of supermarket power.
Speaking at the 35th annual North American and EU Agricultural Conference in Warsaw today (Tuesday), Mr Kendall explained how the abuse of power by supermarkets was an international problem and therefore required an international approach.
Mr Kendall, co-chairing a session on how the food chain can provide a better income for farmers, added: "Farmers are the poor relations of the food chain, not just in Britain, but across the developed world. But that has got to change. If farmers and growers are to have the incentive and the resources to invest in achieving the step change in farm productivity that the world needs, we must ensure that supply chains deliver a fair share of what consumers pay for food to primary producers."
Mr Kendall spoke about the long struggle which farmers in Britain have been engaged in to secure a legally binding Code of Practice, policed by an Adjudicator with statutory powers, to deter and punish retailers who illegally exploit their dominant position.
"We are probably ahead of the rest of Europe in prescribing the medicine to deal with retailer abuse, but that it is only because we are also ahead of the rest of Europe in the extent of the problem we’re facing.
"Even with the progress that has been made, and the prospect of legislation in the reasonably near future, there is still a lot of work to do to ensure that the watchdog we have been promised has real teeth, and isn’t just a flea-bitten old mongrel, that wags its tail every time it’s patted on the head by one of the big four supermarkets.
"That means allowing third parties, like farming organisations, to make complaints on their members’ behalf, so as to preserve anonymity and prevent victimisation, and it means giving the watchdog the power to impose big fines, if naming and shaming proves an insufficient deterrent.
"These are both achievable objectives for which we shall continue to campaign and to lobby, as the legislation is drafted and as it goes through Parliament.
"The work that has been led by COPA to develop an EU Code of Practice to prevent the abuse of supermarket power complements the work we have been doing in the UK, and we will continue to support that, using the lessons we have learned from our own experience."
