DEAR SIR

As a Northern Ireland dairy farmer, I congratulate and welcome the forward thinking initiative by the Irish Farmers Journal and the Ulster Farmers Union to change the payment of milk in Northern Ireland from volume to solids at their recent conference. We heard most farmers would see very little difference to their milk cheque initially. Solids payments is a much fairer way and would encourage breeding and feeding for more fat and protein which could massively increase the value of the entire milkpool in a few years. This would leave more money for us all and a more competitive dairy industry. We heard how there may be a misconception that high yields and good solids can not go together but we saw many examples of how this can be done. Only a handful of countries in the world still pay on volume and, as most of our milk goes into products for export, we are already years behind our competitors. I hope the momentum is kept up now that they have got the debate going. I would encourage all dairy farmers to ask their processors to make the change.