The Milk for Farmers brand means a four pint bottle (2.27 litres), which now sells for 89p, will cost an extra 23p.
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Morrisons director Martyn Jones said: ‘We will be launching a brand that allows customers to pay more to support farmers.
Over the weekend, about 70 demonstrators herded two cows into a branch of Asda in the central English town of Stafford in act of protest. Morrisons insisted to suppliers that it will not take the profit from any farmgate price decreases. The farming unions have been calling for greater transparency on prices paid to farmers.
Farmers say that it costs them 30 pence (about 47 American cents) to produce a liter of milk.
Industry leaders met Morrisons bosses to try to tackle falling milk prices which, the National Farmers Union (NFU) says, will lead to dairy farmers being forced to leave the industry in the next few weeks as they struggle to pay bills and face rising debts.
He said: “Arable farming is also prone to world markets and the price has fallen sharply here as well”.
The convoy headed for a Morrisons supermarket in Stoke-on-Trent, where the farmers held a peaceful demonstration in the auto park.
FARMERS have launched a campaign to be paid more for milk. It said it was “doing everything possible to help our farmer owners to navigate through this increasingly tough situation”.
As fresh milk has a short shelf life, farmers have little choice over when to sell their products.
After the protests last Thursday night, FFA called off the action against Morrison’s pending the outcome of today’s talks.
Those near big cities can opt out of the globalised milk market through establishing farmer co-operatives to supply just the local area where they can possibly charge higher prices.
Farmers estimate that is costs between 30p and 32p per litre to produce, but figures vary. The in-store protests have been going on for more than a week in locations up an down the country, with a more concerted action planned to empty supermarket shelves on Friday.
They have blamed the fall in prices on a supermarket price war, but retailers claim the drop reflects the decline in commodity prices and an oversupply of milk, partly caused by Russia’s block on imports.
About a dozen angry farmers began protesting last month, at first with a blockade of tractors which set off along the A50 heading west, and later with a single-file convoy of tractors, again setting off from Sudbury on the same road.
The processors making these cuts have blamed a number of factors for this most recent reduction in prices, including the global surplus of milk, which has resulted in a downward price trend, and lower demand from key markets such as Russian Federation and China.
“It’s a very small group of farmers who want to do this, and they clearly aren’t representative of the larger group”, he said.
“The reality is the debt will probably come back into the money at some stage, but is it really worth its full price, given that even at $4.35 a huge number of dairy farmers will not be cashflow positive and may well go under?”
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He said: “I’m the third generation here, but there won’t be a fourth”.
