DAIRY farmers have staged protests at supermarkets in Kilmarnock and Ayr over milk prices.

A team of farmers filmed themselves buying all the milk off the shelves in several supermarkets.

They said 19 farms in Scotland had gone out of business this year and more were on the brink.

Similar protests have taken place elsewhere in the UK over the past few days.

The farmers have claimed they are losing about £200 a day to produce Scottish milk at the current prices paid by the supermarkets.

Darren Blackhurst, commercial director at Morrisons group, said: "We try to pass on lower prices to our customers wherever possible.

"We do recognise however, due to reduced global demand, that this has created an oversupply of British milk, creating difficult conditions for many dairy farmers at present.

"At a constructive meeting on Wednesday with the NFU Dairy Board chairman, we confirmed that Morrisons is not accepting any further cost price decreases from our suppliers driven by the falling farm gate milk price."

Figures published by AHDB Dairy showed the average UK farmgate price was 24.06p per litre in May, a decrease of 25.4% of the amount paid to farmers in May last year.