Opinion: Do we really value our dairy farmers enough?, asks David Clayton.

One thing I've missed from this election campaign is 'Come on then, how much is a pint of milk?' It was a time-honoured banana skin over which a prospective MP could easily stumble. To be honest it all seems to have played out at a much higher level this time around. 'Was that a stable or strong U-turn Mrs May?' Or, 'Can you cost that out again for us please, Diane?' Look where we are now because no one asked that penetrating question about milk!

Whilst I would have guffawed at the inability to answer the milk question, I confess to being ignorant myself because for as long as I can remember we've had a cheery milkman deliver a few pints to the door. In my childhood, his early morning visits announced themselves with a whistle and the clink of bottles onto the doorstep. One of those old reassuring sounds in the landscape of daily life.

Up until a couple of months ago we still had a milkman (forgive me for not saying 'milk-person.' It was always a chap in my personal experience). The daily delivery had changed to every other day and no longer did he call round for money when you'd see him in person. Direct debit was the preferred method of payment thus any itemisation down to price per pint alluded me and was disguised with a delivery cost anyway.

Then mostly, because I started working a few days away every now and again, the milk order started leaving us with too much. Then, if I was around, not enough. We weren't nimble enough to plan ahead and change it. So, we made a household decision to abandon the milkman in favour of buying it when needed. It's working well, if you're asking, but I'm now feeling a bit guilty having shrunk the milkman's round, taken a step backwards in the supply chain and placed my business largely in the hands of the supermarkets.

I don't know what I thought a pint of milk should cost but I was jolly happy to buy two litres for £1.49 at the convenience store just up the road. Then I stopped at a garage the other day picked up a two-litre bottle and was asked for a quid. I thought I'd misheard. I started doing a calculation driving home. That's three and a half pints, near as dammit. Even my feeble maths got to it to under 30p a pint. Take away the garage's profit, the packaging and transport, what's the farmer getting? Well, nowhere near enough it would seem as, over the years, many have ditched dairy for something that makes a healthier profit.

So, my own relationship, such as it was, with a pint of milk has changed and I'm uneasy. Milk is available everywhere now and competition is rife. No longer is it the sole domain of a local dairy supplied by local farmers and my own convenience of getting a large plastic bottle of it, when I need some, suits me. But I'm now one step further removed from the farmer and the blessed cow. Is that a good thing?

I've just spent a couple of weeks in my favourite Yorkshire Dale and dairy cows are around lazily munching the lush green grass. Across in the next Dale the milk they produce travels just a few miles to the Wensleydale Creamery where the rich pastures ensure the eponymous cheese has the authentic raw material. I've tasted endless variations of cream, cheese, butter and ice cream from around these parts - and milk too. I've waited in my car behind cows being ushered through gateways into milk parlours and watched their engorged, swaying rear quarters and swishing tails.

I now feel reassuringly closer to an udder, so to speak. So how much is a pint of milk? Priceless!