IMAGINE lighting a fire, taking six crisp £20 notes and tossing them into the flames not as a one off act of madness but every day – seven days a week.

This is in effect what fourth generation dairy farmer Phil Lewis from Nash is doing while working up to 80 hours a week for the privilege.

Phil, aged 38, starts work at Sodom Farm just after 7am and finishes, if he is lucky, at about 8pm everyday including Christmas Day and Bank Holidays.

He last had a day off in 2009 and when he tried to have one earlier this year it failed because he got home to find work to do.

Phil, who farms with his 68-year-old father Eric and his brother Eric, sees little hope for the future. He believes that he will be the last of a line.

This is due a combination of the economic madness that has come to be modern dairy farming and because there is not enough time to get out and meet a girlfriend.

“Even if there was time what women would be mad enough to want to marry a farmer?” said Phil, who lives with parents Eric and Kathleen because he cannot afford a home of his own although he is engaged in a ‘needle in a haystack’ search for affordable housing in the area.

The farm in the shadow of Clee Hill has a herd of 100 Friesian Holstein dairy cattle, 200 beef cattle, and 40 calves.

Milking takes place twice a day producing 800,000 litres of milk a year most of which is sold with a small proportion kept to feed the calves.

The rub is that while Phil’s milk is ‘gold standard’ he is paid just 19p a litre compared with the 25p a litre cost of production which mean a shortfall of the better part of £50,000 a year compared with what is needed to simply break even.

“When my granddad Price gave up milking in 1978 due to ill health he was getting just over 17p that was 37 years ago,” said Phil Lewis.

But Phil is ‘lucky’ compared with many dairy farmers in south Shropshire and the Teme Valley because the beef herd provides some subsidy to the dairy side of the business.

“Dairy farming was the backbone of agriculture in this area and the back has been broken,” said Phil, who says that some dairy farmers have to resort to ‘pay day’ loans to get through each month.

A year ago farmers were getting up to 32p a litre but perfect dairying conditions last year resulted in a glut of milk just at the time when Russia, a major market, stopped buying milk from EU countries in response to sanctions.

To make matters worse the market in China has dramatically contracted.

Farmers desperate to save money by reducing the size of their herds also found the bottom had fallen out of the market for old and barren cattle with Eric having to take just £400 at market last autumn for an animal he would normally have expected to sell for at least £900.

“We have been desperately let down by the Government that simply does not understand,” said Phil, who believes that the seeds of the current crisis were sown when Mrs Thatcher’s government decided to open up the diary sector leading to the disbanding of the Milk Marketing Board that used to provide a fairer level of price across the board.

In its place is a long list of milk buyers but what most have in common is that they pay less than the cost of production. Ironically, as Phil points out, it is some of the much maligned big retailers including Tesco, Sainsbury, M&S and Waitrose that do at least pay enough to cover costs with a bit on top.

“I feel trapped with no alternative to working like a madman at something that is pouring money down the drain,” said Phil.

“It is hopeless because the cost of moving into something other than dairy would involve the investment of a huge amount of money that we simply do not have.

“At the beginning of the year I went down with shingles brought on by stress and was advised by the doctor to rest but that is just not an option.”

He says he understands why farmers have a massive problem with mental illness and why it has a higher rate of suicide than any other profession.