THE Tenant Farmers' Association has appealed to landlords to be fair in their treatment of tenants on milk quota apportionment, due to be agreed by the end of this month - also the end of the milk year.

Following a European Court of Justice ruling in 2002, all milk quota holders must be involved actively in dairying or risk losing their quota to the national reserve. To avoid this, any non-producing quota holders must ensure their quota is sold by next month.

"We are facing a huge problem where tenants, who have ceased milk production at some time in the past, have been leasing out their quota in the absence of consent to sell from their landlords," said George Dunn, TFA chief executive.

"As milk quota is attached to land, landlords' consent is essential. It is these producers upon which the ECJ ruling falls most heavily."

Before a tenant can sell milk quota, he not only needs the landlord's consent but must also agree an apportionment of the quota value with the landlord. While there is a statutory code for enforcing apportionment calculations at the end of a tenancy, no such code exists where the tenancy is to continue.

"The TFA is aware that some landlords have been taking an unreasonably harsh line in an attempt to extract more value from the quota than they deserve," said Mr Dunn. "The lack of a statutory code for the apportionment allows them to do this.

"We are aware of situations where landlords have been offering less than half of the value the tenant would ordinarily be entitled to, in the knowledge that, if the tenant does not agree, the quota cannot be sold.

"We have also seen correspondence from landlords' agents where it is clear that landlords are willing to forgo any value rather than agree to pay the tenant the portion that the tenant rightly deserves.

"There is not much time left; deals need to be agreed over the next few weeks and quota prices are already beginning to fall. We would call on all landlords to be reasonable and to consider, where deals cannot be agreed in time, to allow the quota to be sold and held in a neutral account for an apportionment to be agreed between the parties after the sale deadline."