You made a couple of points there. Of course, I am new to this role and to working in a co-operative organisation, but what is very clear—maybe there is a misconception about this—is that this co-operative has for years had different prices for different groups of farmers and those prices have been based, to a greater or lesser extent, on the value of the milk.
As I have got into my role, I have sought advice and have understood from others who have expertise in the co-operative field that it is not an established principle across the world that everybody should get the same price regardless of the commercial value of what they are producing, so I do not accept the principle that they should.
However, I do accept the principle of consistency of treatment. A large number of farmers were adversely affected by our announcements about the new milk fields, so it was important that we applied some consistent principles across the organisation. We did that because it was the right thing to do and because we are accountable to our farmers for their consistency of treatment. That is why it is important that the farmers on Bute are treated consistently with the 337 farmers in the midlands—we talked about this earlier this morning—who received the same impact from the changes.
As I have gone around talking to farmers across the country, I have stressed that, in changing the way in which we set prices to something that is based on value, farmers have a line of sight to either the creamery or the customer and can therefore—in my view—be more involved and engaged and hold people to account for their performance. However, as we make that change across the country, there will be some volatility in the prices. When we announce the change, the impact is that some prices go down. Given that there is some volatility in the market, next month and the following month some of those prices could go up and down. Therefore, to the extent that some farmers have had a 0.2 per cent increase and some have had a 1 per cent decline, I note that those are monthly numbers that will change.
On our discussion this morning and your point that the focus should be about what we are going to do to help farmers, there might be some implications from the volatility, because farmers need to be able to deal with it as that is their life now. Does that mean hedging? Does it mean giving better financial advice about how they manage their businesses? That is certainly on our agenda in terms of how we can help them.