God knows, Current Account has been critical many times in the past of farmers and their incessant demands for high milk prices. For that reason, it came as a refreshing surprise to see Dairygold's shareholders reject the demands of a well-organised ginger group to reverse the 6p a gallon cut in the milk price and also freeze capital investment at the co-op, presumably to free up cash to pay the higher milk price.

The price paid for milk in Munster is a particularly emotive topic, with farmers supplying Kerry, Golden Vale and Dairygold all looking closely at how much each other is getting paid. Kerry farmers, of course, have been long-subsidised by the group's huge earnings from its international food ingredients and consumer foods business - not to mention the value of the shares they own in Kerry Group.

Dairygold has also tended to pay more than the Munster average ever since the Mitchelstown-Ballyclough merger that created the co-op almost 10 years ago. And indeed there is no doubt that Dairygold has paid milk prices which, if judged purely on market grounds, could not be justified.

But maybe the mood in Dairygold has changed and certainly chairman Denis Cronin did not pull his punches at the Green Glens this week when he told the 3,000 shareholders (half the total) who turned up that "nobody owes us a living" and urged realism.

But the size of the vote demanding a reversal in the milk price cut - 832 out of the 3,000 who attended - means that the Dairygold board, despite this week's vote of confidence, has a sizeable rebellious ginger group to contend with. How strong that ginger group really is might be illustrated by the next vote for seats on the co-op board.

The events at Green Glens this week - complete with Kosovan security men to make sure that only shareholders got into the special meeting - must have caused some amusement among the State's beef, sheep and pig farmers, the ones who have really suffered from low product prices in recent years.

It isn't all that long ago since milk prices were up around 110p a gallon and, in general, dairy farmers have fared far better over the past few years than their counterparts in beef, sheep and pigmeat. Dairy processing is a cyclical business, especially when processors are largely dependent on cyclical commodity business like butter and skim milk powder, and it will take a major move towards a consumer-oriented philosophy to shake off that dependence on commodity markets.

The co-ops will claim that they are doing that, with Dairygold expanding into British cheese and Golden Vale rapidly expanding its Rye Valley ready meals business. But more needs to be done if the co-ops are to economically justify paying for milk even at the current depressed prices.

Of course, mergers and the elimination of duplicated processing facilities would be one way to generate the savings that could support high milk prices. But so far, bar the Dairygold merger nine years ago, the Glanbia merger two years ago and the smaller Lakeland merger, co-op shareholders have shown an unfathomable reluctance to get to grips with the over-proliferation of processing capacity that plagues the industry.