DAIRY FARMERS and businesses turned out in force for the annual Semex conference in Glasgow, and heard a message of cautious optimism for the sector from speaker after speaker.

English NFU vice-president Stuart Roberts led the charge on the first day, taking to the stage to declare that although British farmers were feeling pretty beaten up – having unfairly taken the blame for a slew of issues, not least of which were problems with public health and the environment – they actually have a 'phenomenal' story to tell, if they'd only get their heads around the fact that no-one is going to tell it for them.

"Look, only 3 to 7% of all the UK's greenhouse gases come from agriculture, and that methane has a half life of nine years at the back end of the cow, while CO2 has a halflife of 200 years as it comes out the exhaust pipe. We need to to a much better job of telling our side of the story."

As Semex has grown, so have the elements of showmanship employed by its speakers, and Mr Roberts joined in this cabaret, brandishing two glasses of white liquid at the audience, and sipping from each, with an involuntary grimace at one of them.

"One of these is meant to save the planet," he observed. "But the carbon footprint of the oat milk is 18 times higher than the cow milk. One has more protein, zinc, potassium – and it ain't the plant one. We don't talk about nutrient density, but we need to start.

"The public are actually supportive of us. Only 0.8% are vegan – although one of them clearly works for the BBC News website – so let's get this in proportion," added Mr Roberts. "We need to counter myths and falsehoods so the public can make their own decisions. Ultimately, it is us that need to articulate this. We need farmers, and processors and retailers to work together like we have never worked before."

Mr Roberts revealed that the English NFU was about to produce a document setting out the hard facts about agriculture’s role in climate change and would 'share it with anyone who wants it'.

Next to the stump was managing director of Müller Milk and Ingredients, Patrick Müller, who did not attract as much audience opprobrium as might have been expected for the leader of a company that had very recently exercised its option to drop several Scottish dairy farmers from its books – although the conference's decision to receive all questions from the floor via a dedicated smartphone app may have taken some of the sting out of that.

Mr Müller stressed that, when he had taken on his current role at the family firm, there had been a real risk of collapse. The facts of industry were that consumption was going down, production was going up, there was huge competition between retailers, and prices were very low.

"There was a collective £144million net loss – that was not sustainable," he stressed.

For all that the dairy sector was now looking to fortified milks, organics and added value products etc, Mr Müller described them as 'puppies' – nice things to have, but hard to enjoy when there is a six billion litre liquid milk market bear in the room that needs tamed.

Having thus justified his company's various cuts and contract renegotiations, he insisted that the UK was still one of the best places in the world to produce milk: "We believe in our farmers. We see the future as much more bright than it was 12 months ago."

Dairy sector analyst Chris Walkland was also on hand to repeat his long-standing objections to the farming unions' calls for milk contract reform, wielding statistical analysis in support of his assertion that dairy farmers were mostly receiving a price in line with global, EU and average indexes, plus or minus 2%, with only very occasional exceptions.

"The UK milk market is better than it was, but it is still getting screwed by the retailers. But then, everyone is getting screwed by the retailers," he added, between changes of jacket colour to denote whether his speech was focussing on good or bad news.