DAIRY farmers are taking to the streets to highlight the low price they receive for their milk.

For, while they receive an average of just 9p a pint - less than the cost of production - the consumer pays an average 36p in the shops, a 300pc mark-up.

The NFU claims that low prices generally paid to farmers now cost 302 jobs a month from the industry in Yorkshire and the North-East.

On Friday, September 13, dairy farmers will be in Northallerton High Street between noon and 2pm handing out 302 free pints of milk to the public - one bottle for each job lost.

The farmers will be joined and supported by Liam Fox, Shadow Health Secretary.

"The idea is to to draw attention to the plight of dairy farmers," said Peter Edmonds, Northallerton branch secretary of the NFU. "The producer is being paid less than it costs to produce a pint of milk and less than it costs to buy a bottle of water."

The demonstration will see a tractor and trailer drive up and down Northallerton High Street once, carrying a life-size wooden cow, milk churns and a band.

Following will be "milk maids" giving away bottles of milk and dairy farmers handing out leaflets highlighting the crisis in the dairy sector.

They will then return to an area near the town hall where they will continue to hand out leaflets and milk.

The demonstration is part of a series of events the NFU is staging as part of its Farming Counts campaign.

It is demanding an immediate price rise for dairy farmers in the lead up to the next milk selling round on October 1.

On Saturday, September 14, a dairy and livestock promotion will be held at Hexham farmers' market between 9am and 1.30.

The NFU will have a stand at the market, which holds the title of best farmers' market in England and Wales.

Farmers will hand out leaflets highlighting the current issues affecting the livestock and dairy industry, as well as on arable and poultry matters.

The campaign stresses that Britain's farmers produce 35m tonnes of food a year - including 9m loaves and 32m pints of milk daily - which provides more than 550,000 jobs in the food sector.

But many products such as milk, wheat and barley costs them more to grow than they receive in payment.

As part of the campaign Ben Gill, NFU president, this week met David Webster, Safeway chairman, and Sir Terry Leahy, chief executive officer of Tesco, to drive home the message of a fair price for producers.

He warned that, if nothing was done, there would be no credible British dairy farming industry left.

He made it clear, however, that the NFU's prime aim was not an increase in the retail price of milk but a fairer share of the final value passed back to farmers.

Further meetings are planned with other retailers and suppliers.

* On Wednesday Tesco called on milk processors to pay dairy farmers at least 2p more a litre