Tesco bosses have agreed to send a leading director for crunch talks in a bid to avoid militant action.

The multiple faced serious disruption to its business last week after hardcore pressure group Farmers for Action (FFA) threatened to blockade Tesco's distribution centres unless it entered make-or-break price talks.

FFA chiefs claimed the chain was forcing its farmers to sell product at prices below the cost of production.

But the UK's leading retailer – which made £4 billion profit last year – has agreed to send commercial director Colin Smith to a summit with FFA leader David Handley and his colleagues.

As the Journal went to press, FFA publicity chief Paul Reynolds believed that the high street giant was running scared.

Asked whether the threat of direct action had brought about the compromise, he said: 'It obviously has. They've given in to everything.' He added: 'There are very little other means of protest that we've got, because of the nature of the beast.' Originally FFA had asked to speak to Tesco chief executive Sir Terry Leahy, a man who still eludes them.

But Tesco chiefs vehemently denied that they have simply caved in after the FFA threats.

Official Tesco spokesman on the saga Jonathan Church said: 'It's not helpful to talk about people having given in to demands. We don't want them to be saying there's a climb down and us to be saying we have won.

'We are still having discussions but we are hopeful that we will avoid the action that they have threatened.' In the light of the uneasy compromise, the FFA explained that its main desires were to stand up for farming and to be taken seriously by Tesco.

Reynolds said: 'We are being asked to produce everything at less than it costs, and when they are making £4 million a day and we are making nothing, something is wrong.

'We have talked with the government – Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Lord Whitty – and they have obviously taken things on board because we have got a few things changed, yet for some reason Tesco doesn't see us as a body worth talking to.

'We are about getting back a way of life in the countryside where we can survive,' he added.

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