Even as demonstrations by dairy farmers raged across Europe last week in protest at the poor prices received for milk, the situation in northern England was one of relative bucolic calm.

During the past few months, farmers in the region have been reaping the benefits of an improvement in prices secured for milk production that has allowed them to return to levels of income not seen since the overlapping disasters of the BSE, or “mad-cow disease”, epidemic and the subsequent outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.