Farmers milk price protest could cost consumers The National Farmers' Union wants a reversal of all this year's cuts. "They are unsustainable, dairy farmers won't be able to stay in business," Fran Barnes, the union's communications manager, told the Independent. The farmers argue that the reduction in price could lead to further industrialisation of agriculture and the destruction of the British landscape as we know it. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, the TV chef, said: "What's at stake, ultimately, is the full intensification of the dairy industry, into an indoor industrial process like broiler farming or factory pig production. So what's also at stake is a whole landscape and a centuries-old rural infrastructure: millions of acres of permanent pastures and hedgerows. The British Retail Consortium Food said supermarkets paid more for milk than other customers. Since 2000, the number of dairy farmers has shrunk by 40 per cent to 10,700 and many of those producers were struggling before this summer's price reductions at supermarkets.