It does seem like it’s been an awful long time coming. At long last it appears the Scottish and UK governments are serious about working together to persuade UK supermarkets and food service providers to help British farmers through what is described as their “hour of need” in the face of falling prices and other issues. Milk is obviously the hot potato right now, with farmers’ protests at being paid a measly 23p or so for a pint of milk that it takes around 32p to produce, and for which consumers now expect to pay no more than 25p, being shown on primetime news bulletins.

The price at Poundland is £1 for two litres of Robert Wiseman semi-skimmed milk (50p a litre), and it’s even cheaper if you buy it online at Waitrose (where it’s £1 for four pints of British semi-skimmed milk, or 44p a litre) and at Morrisons, where it’s 87p for four pints.

These ridiculously low prices, which are used as bait (or loss leaders) to get us to spend more on other goods, illustrate that milk is seen simply as a commodity rather than a precious food source, and so we value it less and less. That fact that bottled mineral water costs between 33p and 70p a pint in supermarkets only rubs salt into the wound.

A meeting held in London earlier this week saw Scottish rural affairs secretary Richard Lochhead and Scotland's farmers' union president Allan Bowie get round the same table as the DEFRA secretary of state Liz Truss and farming ministers and industry leaders from across the UK.

Their aim was to recognise the serious problems facing the industry and to agree that urgent action was needed. Lochhead called for a UK-wide meeting with all major retailers and food service providers to ask them to take their responsibilities seriously.

This was seconded by the NFU, which said that meeting should be private to allow scope for a frank discussion on the impact that sourcing and pricing policies have on primary producers and what is needed to keep family farms in business.

Farmers and producers rely on retailers to shift the bulk of their food onto consumers, and that balance of power has always been weighted in the favour of the retailers. The fact is that the Scottish government or Westminster has no legal powers over their sourcing policies or what they sell.

As we have been reminded during the current milk crisis, we’re part of the EU dairy market, which is at the mercy of global gluts and shortages. We’re told too much milk is being produced around the world. Together with a collapse in demand from China and the Russian import ban, this has has depressed prices the world over. Which means our lovely milk is just a tiny droplet in the massive ocean that is the EU pool.

Scottish produce is being sucked into the global commodities market along with produce from other countries. Central buying policies mean that the term Scottish isn’t automatically given the prominence it deserves on supermarket shelves: that’s only on offer if the producer can and will pay for it, and is willing to accept discount prices. The Scottish milk, butter, cheese, yoghurt and ice cream you might expect to see in your local store will probably be displayed below eye level, if it’s there at all.

Basically, it’s just one part of the bigger picture that is crowded out by the big brands like Lurpak, Cathedral City English Cheddar, Yeo Valley yoghurt, President French butter, Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream and a whole raft of imported products.

Some larger multiples have made inroads into sourcing locally and some have “regional buyers”, but this seems haphazard and inconsistent. Better labelling of Scottish produce could help direct consumers towards it, as could the new Scottish Dairy Brand on a large number of artisan and big brand cheese and butter.

The problem is that supermarkets don’t have to “take their responsibilities seriously” when it comes to supporting primary producers, or local suppliers. Dairy farmers have been protesting about low prices for around 15 years without any lasting benefits or solutions.

So can the recent farmers’ summit really make a difference? The answer is, of course, yes – but only if we consumers get behind what it wants to achieve. Supermarkets will only act on consumer demand.

If they don’t put a realistic price on local produce, we should stop shopping there, and instead visit the farmers’ markets and farm shops, local delis and independent shops who do. There’s nothing wrong with protectionism when it comes to helping your own out of a crisis.

I applaud the aims of the farmers’ summit, but the real influencers in this are the great Scottish public.

So who will be first in the queue to pay an extra 10p a litre, or 23p for a four-pint bottle, for the new branded Milk for Farmers at Morrisons?