If the price cuts announced by Muller/Wisemans, Arla, Dairy Crest and First Milk had gone ahead, it would have seen dairy farmers losing £59.3 million from their liquid milk sales in the next twelve months.

Cancelling these August milk price cuts, including the cuts by the small and medium sized dairies has been a real achievement for the NFU and the dairy coalition.

The dairy coalition came together because a group of like-minded organisations had the shared aim of a fair milk price for British dairy farmers by cancelling the August milk price cuts, restoring the money lost in the cuts of last spring and establishing a sustainable future for the dairy farming industry.

The focus now is to build on the successes of the past weeks by continuing to work together to secure more short term wins as well as a long term future for the industry.

Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and M & S already had mechanisms in place that ensured their farmers receive at least the cost of production for their liquid milk. The aim of the coalition was to ensure that the remaining 6 of the grocery retailer’s top 10 also delivered the same commitments.

To date, Morrison’s, ASDA, The Co-oP, ALDI and LIDL have all pledged to pay more for their liquid milk, a huge achievement which has been secured through peaceful demonstration protest as well as harnessing the power of the public. Our success so far with retailers leaves only Iceland refusing to move on price but isolated as the odd man out amongst the grocery top 10.

#SOSdairy on social networking site Twitter has been about getting a fair deal for dairy farmers and the dairy farming industry but it’s also been about harnessing the power of the public through social and conventional media. #SOS dairy captured the imagination and mood of a general public that identified with dairy farmers and dairy farming against the might of corporate retail and processing companies.

Undoubtedly the success of securing public support for the campaign has been essential to persuading retailers that they should ensure that dairy farmers receive a fair price for their milk.

Cancelling the milk price cuts has been a very public campaign with very public, near universal support from well-known individuals to, critically, the ordinary man and woman in the street. A measure of the campaign’s success with the public is a recent YouGov poll, showing a staggering 19% of the adult population, some 4.3 million people, are now looking to change the way they shop as a result of the milk price cuts campaign.

For the dairy campaign, that support has been vital but it also points to wider opportunities for the NFU and its members in how we use the media, particularly social media in harnessing the support of the British public who can be our greatest allies.