It seems a long time ago that the £200 million aid package was announced. This will not help very much, but is nevertheless a very welcome help to start farming back on the road to recovery. It is difficult to know exactly what is needed to get farming back on its feet. One is to improve marketing and therefore increase consumption, particularly of milk. There will be a national milk promotion starting in June. The next thing is to improve and increase our negotiating strength with our customers and to provide what they require. In the milk sector Milk-Link have made a good start in this direction and hopefully they will continue to exert upward pressure on our milk price. The other factor which is not helping, and is beyond our control, is the strength of the £ against the euro. This of course is also damaging other industries.
For those of you who are wondering, we expect to receive about £900 from the £200 million aid package. This is very welcome, but it will not pay many bills. Those of you who saw me on 'Spotlight' will know that we are claiming working families tax credit to supplement our income. I am not proud of this fact - I would rather be making profits and paying income tax.