Dear Sir: Regarding last week’s report from the Solid Change meeting, there is a misconception that an A+B-C payment system is for spring calvers.

It won’t drive farmers in NI to spring calving, and while it is a long road, it has to be the end game if our industry is to be competitive on the commodity market. I don’t agree with the warning to “beware the minus C”. We will have to reduce our carbon footprint going forward, and need to get away from producing white water.

Also, as a regional committee member of Lakeland Dairies, I have not heard a member agreeing with the new payment structure proposed this month.

For the chair to say that the feedback from suppliers is that they would favour a system of this type, I simply don’t know where he got his information from. Everyone who spoke at the NI meeting on Friday 12 November was against the proposal. To create a system that pays two farmers differently for exactly the same quality of milk is against the ethos of a co-op.

Peter Conway, Strangford, Co Down.

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