Mr. T.J. Flanagan:

No. It is not a regulated function. This is a business agreement between two partners; they are a farmer with particular priorities and interests, depending on how much money he or she has borrowed and the repayments to be made and, perhaps, another farmer who is not very heavily leveraged and is happy to ride the markets. That is the traditional way of taking the milk cheque. Some farmers may have wanted to de-risk, and the best offering was X price and with the support and encouragement of their banks, they jumped in as heavily as they could.