Farmers in the midlands have organised a rolling protest to highlight the impacts of falling milk prices on their businesses.

Taking cues from their French counterparts, who have been staging disruptive protests in a desperate bid to garner more government support for the livestock industry, dairy farmers took to the road in Staffordshire, mounting a go-slow rolling protest.

Having staged an initial demonstration on Friday, farmers returned to the A50 and A500 on Wednesday, moving between Staffordshire and Derbyshire before converging on a Morrisons store near Stoke.

Protest group Farmers for Action, which led blockades of retailers and processors deemed to be undermining farmers’ position in previous dairy crises, condemned the past week’s protests, and distanced itself from those protesting.

The group said in a statement, “Although we understand the frustration and anger of those who today have been protesting on the A50, we feel very strongly this will not benefit our cause in the short term.  The last people we should be dragging into our argument with retailers, food service industry, milk processors and the government is the general public.”

One farmer involved in the protest told the local press that Wednesday’s demonstration only used one carriageway of the A-Road in a bid to minimise disruption for the public. Farmers said they are facing problems that run deeper than weaker global markets for dairy products.

FFA has called a separate protest in Cheshire for Thursday evening.