Over a thousand farmers will see payments for their milk withheld next week as one of Great Britain’s biggest dairy companies announced that they would be delaying payments for a fortnight because of a substantial drop in prices.

The crash in value has, bizarrely, seen milk become cheaper than water.

The co-operative First Milk has said the last twelve months was a “year of volatility that [we have] never seen before.”

The group, owned by British farmers, also announced that they would be increasing levies on its members, which they believe will put the business on a strong platform ahead of the spring.

Prices of milk have fallen by over fifty percent in some case during 2014. Reasons such as exceptional weather, a surplus and increased production from competitors in the United States and New Zealand have all been put forward, as well as lower than forecasted import numbers from both China and Russia.

Here in the United Kingdom, large supermarkets have also been driving the value down by initiating a price war, with a four-pint carton of milk costing in the region of a £1; a reduction of some 30%.

The chairman of First Milk, Sir Jim Paice, the long-standing Conservative MP for South East Cambridgeshire, commented on the situation: “We are a business owned by dairy farmers.

The board are acutely aware of the difficulties this extreme volatility is causing First Milk members and the UK dairy industry.

“Our priority,” he continued, “is to make the business and our processing assets as secure as possible in order that we can continue to process and market every litre of our members’ milk.”

The president of the National Farmers Union (NFU), Meurig Raymond, also weighed in and claimed that dairy farmers were “haemorrhaging money” at the moment.

“We have seen the product devalued,” he said during an earlier interview.

“Liquid milk in particular is now cheaper than water….There are very few dairy farmers making any money….[Most] have lowered costs to a point now that they can’t lower them anymore.”