DAIRY farmers staged a second local blockade – this time at the Müller Wiseman plant in Bridgwater – as the row over farm-gate milk prices continues.

The processing facility next to Sedgemoor Auction Centre was targeted by the Farmers For Action (FFA) group on Tuesdaywhen hundreds of farmers and their families gathered to demand fairer prices for milk.

The group said it chose to target Müller again after it slashed its milk prices by 1.9p per litre for this month.

The group held a similar blockade at the Morrisons depot last month when more than 800 families from across the UK turned up to protest. And the Müller Wiseman depot in Shropshire was the target for a demonstration earlier in October.

David Handley, FFA chairman, said dairy farmers were also unhappy about Müller’s £80million acquisition of Dairy Crest’s entire dairy operations, subject to approval from competition authorities.

He said: “Six weeks ago Müller told us that there was no money in liquid milk and that they lost have £50million.

“If that’s true then how can they be buying Dairy Crest?”

A defiant Somerset FFA co-ordinator and Wedmore dairy farmer James Hole, said: “If this doesn’t stop, the protests will just keep on coming. Some dairy industry commentators have said dairy farmers must improve their efficiency of production to maintain profitability when milk prices fall.

“Efficiency needs investment which cannot be achieved without a sustainable milk price.”

He accused processors of using the global slump in dairy markets as a “scapegoat” to justify the falling farm-gate prices.

A spokesman for Müller UK & Ireland Group said: “To take advantage of record high farm gate milk prices in the past year, dairy farmers have been producing more than a billion litres of milk more than they did in 2013.

Unfortunately this extra production coupled with weak global demand has destabilised the market, and farm gate milk prices have responded.

“Illegally halting the operations of dairy processors does nothing to tackle the reason for the decline in the value of farm-gate milk. It has a substantial cost to the taxpayer in policing and it stops hundreds of employees from doing their jobs.

“Our priority is the 1,200 farmers who supply us, not those who attempt to damage the industry’s reputation through illegal disruption.”