We've been following the recent efforts of dairy farmers in the United Kingdom to negotiate better prices from dairy processing companies. Faced with poor grass growth, high grain costs, and seeing no profit from their milk sales, many farmers feared they could not remain solvent through the winter. BBC News overviews the initial agreement between the farmers and the middle-men processors:

Dairy UK Director General Jim Begg said: "This important initiative builds upon existing arrangements, which give farmers and processors security in business relationships, whilst adding additional safeguards that will assure farmers that their contracts are not putting them at a disadvantage in the marketplace...

"Only on this basis can the industry create the added value that will protect it from price volatility."

NFU Dairy Board chairman Mansel Raymond said farmers needed "equitable and trusting relationships with their milk buyers, and this can only be achieved by putting in place fair and transparent milk supply contracts".

He added that farmers and processors would now be working together to see the code "translated into beneficial terms in milk supply contracts."

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