Ms Bernie Connolly:

I will pick up on the comment about climate change. We know there have been lower volumes of milk this year and in the recent past. There is an issue when the flows in rivers are lower. There will be higher concentrations, which also has an impact. There are other issues, such as the very wet winter we had, which caused huge problems for storage. The system needs to change because it is completely geared towards an intensification model. There is huge land-use pressure. Many ageing farmers are going out of beef, which was less intensive, but their land is being leased to more intensive models. This actually increases the pressure which adds to the difficulties. There are many conflicts within that system. On the one hand, in the agri-food sector they are buying milk but selling fertiliser. They are giving incentives on their sustainability criteria for using protected urea. Some of those are contradictory measures. They need to be looked at because they are part of the issue for nitrate.