Supplies of fresh milk are so low that dairies and supermarkets are buying in one million litres a day from abroad, according to the Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers.

Dairy farmers gathering for their annual show at Stoneleigh Park said that five years ago Britain was self-sufficient in liquid milk supplies whereas today contents of a pint of milk could be from France, the Netherlands and the Irish Republic.

The figures were immediately disputed by the trade body, Dairy UK. A spokesman said: “We just don’t recognise them and don't know where they have come from.”

But Lyndon Edwards, chairman of the association, was adamant that he was not scaremongering and that he was reporting latest 2008 to 2009 data from DairyCo, the sector levy board, to highlight the poor deal for dairy farmers.

He said farmer numbers had halved in a decade to 17,060 and the country could no longer produce the 18million litres of milk a day consumed by the nation.

Instead there was a 1.46billion litre shortfall of milk produced in Britain which had prompted the unprecedented level of imports. Five years ago the UK produced more than 14billion litres a year while now it is down to 12.5billion litres.

The situation was likely to worsen in the future as farmers were still quitting the sector at a rate of 14 a day, he said.

He hit out at the “gross unfairness” of the milk marketplace where farmers were paid 3p below the 25.5p a litre cost of production, yet processor margins had soared by 28 per cent to 21.9p per litre and supermarkets were up 2 per cent to 19.1p per litre.

Last year farmers had earned 27p a litre but that was down to 22.5p, reflecting the collapse in world commodity prices and the volatility in the market.

Mr Edwards said: “All supermarkets and processors are now buying in from abroad because we are not producing enough ourselves and they cannot get a good deal on it. But that does not secure the future of the dairy industry.”

He said the trend would continue unless there was commitment to buy fresh milk produced at home.

A spokesman for Dairy UK said it hoped to prove the figures were wrong soon. “There is very little trade in liquid milk between Britain and Ireland."

No one was available for comment at DairyCo.

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