Prince Charles advocates agricultural co-ops

14 May 2015

Yesterday, letters sent by Prince Charles to the Blair government in 2004 and 2005 have been released showing the Prince calling on the government of the time to help level the playing field to allow co-operatives the room to grow.

The letters addressed to the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, see the Prince highlighting dairy co-operatives and talked about the need for the government to support farmers to allow them to seize new opportunities through co-operation and pooling resources, such as marketing. The Prince added “…unless United Kingdom co-operatives can grow sufficiently the processors and retailers will continue to have the farmers in an arm lock and we will continue to shoot ourselves in the foot!”

In total 27 memos were released by the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act after a legal battle lasting 10 years.