Does the treatment of the Organic suppliers herald the introduction of Farmgate Pricing?

My concerns about the Fonterra decision to axe Organic milk from New Zealand are not so much the decision, but rather the way it was handled, and that this behaviour could this be an ominous preface on how Fonterra could treat other farmers under less cooperatively focused capital structures in the future.

Telling Organic farmers twenty minutes before the national media that their world was about to change can never be argued was genuine consultation.  It was nothing short of tyranny.  Organic farmers are still shareholders, they still have put the same capital in as every other supplier.  This does not bode well for the future of some regional supply groups that may be less profitable to pick-up and process than other regions. 

If Fonterra decides at some time in the future, that it was no longer economical to pick up from a certain region, what will stop them dis-incentivising them from producing.  The Chairman, Henry van der Hayden, has never made any secret of his desire to introduce farm-gate pricing.  He knows this can never happen under the traditional co-operative model, so has spent the entire time at the helm of the Board, trying to actively change the capital structure.  To this end, you will note that every capital structure option put forward has involved a trading platform of some kind.  If you don’t take the thinking that a form of share trading is the best model to transition Fonterra in to an investor owned company, you will concede that any form of share trading will all but remove redemption from the control mechanisms members have over their Board.  By doing this, the Board will be free to treat different groups of farmers as they chose, because although shareholders will still be free to leave, any mass exudes will not be felt on their balance sheet like it has in the past.  Farm-gate pricing will always be in the best financial interests of Fonterra, but not the best interest of all the members.