Retailers committed to premium paid to for farmers

Marks & Spencer, Waitrose and Sainsbury’s have publicly committed to maintaining the premium paid to free-range farmers forced to keep their birds housed because of disease risk. While other retailers are yet to make the same commitment in public, it is understood that most have expressed will support for farmers caught up in higher risk disease zones defined by Defra. Farm leaders speaking at this year’s NFU conference poultry breakout session said there was confidence that farmgate p