The Fonterra Shareholders Council is "broadly supportive" of plans for the co-operative to start sourcing milk from South Island suppliers who are not also shareholders, with a couple of caveats.
Fonterra Co-operative Group, the world's largest dairy exporter, plans mymilk, a new milk-sourcing subsidiary that would try to get milk in the Canterbury, Otago, and Southland regions where competition for supply is most intense from new suppliers on contracts of up to five years without the obligation to buy shares.
The feedback, particularly from new farmers who have recently spent a lot of money converting farms to dairy, is that they can't afford to buy shares in the co-operative at present but would do so at a later date.
Shareholders Council chairman Ian Brown said the competition for milk supply at the farmgate was one of the biggest changes he'd seen in his farming career.
"It's a changed mindset to how to attract suppliers, whereas in the old days it was what to do with new supply. That's a mindset shift."