A group of 46 Labour MPs have written to the bosses of the UK’s leading supermarkets calling  for a hard reset of their commercial relations with the country’s farmers. Under the current supermarket-dominated systems, they say, farmers have become ‘price-takers’ who often receive just 1% of the profit on the food they produce. 

The MPs also take aim at supermarkets’ marketing of fake farms – so-called ‘farmwashing’ – which they say is a deliberate attempt to mislead British consumers. 

The MPs write: “Your recent public positioning as defenders of UK farmers stands in contrast to farmers’ and growers’ commercial dealings with you. Farmers have told many of the co-signed below that their relationship with you is often characterised by your own pursuit of excessive profit, rather than – as you have claimed – a fair business relationship.

“You will also be acutely aware that farmers are ‘price takers’ – taking and agreeing the price for their product, set by supermarkets. Research shows that farmers often receive 1p profit from the food items they produce. This is creating a farming industry that is struggling, and forcing too many farmers and growers to rely on subsidies from government.

“Over the last year alone, your businesses combined made a total pre-tax profit of more than £5billion. Yet a typical 200-acre arable family farm in the UK makes just £27,300 in profit. In a world where farmers and producers are struggling to make a living, and relying on Government grants and subsidies so that they can survive from one year to the next, this can’t be seen as fair or right. This stark fact is made even more concerning when not all supermarkets pay corporation tax in the UK.”

The MPs point out that farmers “carry all the risk, yet they receive only the smallest crumbs of the reward” and warn the supermarket bosses that they are  “failing in your moral and commercial obligations to our farmers”. 

Raising concerns about the continuing practice of ‘farmwashing’, the MPs say: “Misleading labelling is actively suggesting that produce sold in many of your supermarkets is grown or reared in the UK, when it is in fact often imported, or produced in mega-farms that masquerade as a small family farm. This is not only undermining family farms, but it is actively misleading customers”.

The MPs say they are keen to meet with the supermarkets to “understand how you are intending to improve your terms and conditions, and to level the playing field for farmers in the UK, so that they too can get a greater share of the benefits from growing, producing, and selling in the UK”.