THE milk company Dairy Crest has always been of great interest to me as firstly I saw my milk cheque depleted in order to set up this farmers co-op.

Our own company to handle and sell, our milk.

It proved very successful and that our joint venture was the right one and Dairy Crest grew to be a multi million pound company.

Unfortunately in 1979 the EU insisted that the monopoly powers be taken away from the Milk Marketing Board, a company that had over the years proved itself a great asset not only the milk producer, but also the housewife.

This monopoly power was the given to the ruthless supermarkets who have over the years not only destroyed millions of very successful dairy farmers, but also the milk processors such as Wiseman dairy who sold out to a foreign company and now Dairy Crest has followed.

The government and the farming unions should not have allowed this to happen and we not only as farmers are the losers, but the consumers and the nation.

When Dairy Crest was floated on the Stock Exchange I was given shares in the new company which because of my faith and loyalty I have guarded them religiously.

However I have now received a letter from the company explaining the way forward and this I do not question, but what they do not explain and I must ask “why hold the a General Meeting at 10 am on December 23, two days before Christmas and out in the sticks”?

What are they hiding that they do not want the share holders at the meeting?

Why not come clean and postpone the meeting to a more convenient date and time and hold the meeting in London?

SIR ERIC HOWELLS

Llanddewi Velfrey