Mr. Ray Doyle:

I might take the antiparasitic questions and Mr. Carroll might take the fertiliser ones. On the intermammary sales, according to the feedback to date from the co-operatives that have been involved in the sales of intermammary products, which have been operating successful mastitis control programmes to enable them to sell them legally since 2007, they have seen them completely collapse. Some of the examples I was given by some of the major milk-producing co-operatives have indicated in excess of 90% less on a year-to-date basis running to 1 September has related to intermammary sales.

No doubt there has been some stockpiling or perhaps a reaction to farmers’ behaviour and so on, but that still does not explain the serious collapse. If that is anything to go by, and all we can go by is the experience of what has happened in the past nine months, it will be a similar situation to the antiparasitic because they are a prescription-only medicine, POM, product that require a prescription from the veterinary prescriber. We are now seeing quite clearly that the vet writes the prescription for the intermammary products and dispenses them, and we are simply excluded from that market. That is a clear example of where we are.

Regarding figures and so on, as I said, it is in excess of 90%. One co-operative gave me an exact figure of 84%, while another co-operative had it at 92%. The rough average is a 90% reduction, essentially a collapse. It was a very important-----