BBC Panorama Review

Having watched and digested the BBC Panorama documentary on the Dairy industry. I feel now able to have processed its contents and comment.

It would be easy for me (I’m the first to admit that I think mainstream media is a dangerous beast) to sit here and say the BBC are wrong and we’re not all like that and its true 99% of farmers aren’t but what we saw was in my opinion a big farm, likely struggling to find staff and taking on whoever they can. So I think I would rather tell you about us than focus too heavily on someone who fundamentally is not like us!

I think the first thing to address is that there is good and bad in all industries which was glaringly obvious with the differing insights into both the undercover Welsh farm and the ethical dairy. Just like not every dog owner is an animal abuser, every farmer is equally not an animal abuser.

The first point I must disagree with is the Vets comments of using a hip hoist to move a cow over a long distance is normal practice. It is not. This is categorically not something we would either do or condone.

The other point I must disagree with is the farmer at the ethical dairy stating that he is somewhat ostracised within the industry. He is in a unique situation as the reporter touched upon of being able to process his own milk. This takes a great deal of expertise and investment which is something that not all farmers are able to partake in. This brings me onto my next point that not every style or system of farming will suit every farmer. Its horses for courses so to speak. Some farms calve in short blocks (or 2) some calve all year round. Some cows are pedigree, some are crossbred. Some cows live out all year, others half of the year and others are in all year. Some farms milk 3000 cows others 100 cows. Some farms rear all of their young stock, some sell all of their young stock and some keep all of their heifers and sell all of their beef calves. No system is right or wrong when done well.

We milk 260 pedigree Holstein cows calving all year round and housed all year round too. We graze young stock and some far-off dry cows. We AI everything to either sexed Holstein or beef depending on what’s right for each individual animal. We sell all of our beef calves and keep all of our heifers. We use as little antibiotics as possible and like to think that we are always open to ideas and progression especially in the name of welfare. Every cow on our farm has a history, a personality and a story, many have ancestry dating back to the 70’s. For us milking even 500 cows would be 200 too many and require such a large amount of investment when we already have a large amount of borrowing that any sane businessman or woman would look at and wonder what we do it for.

More cows would require more staff and whilst employing people isn’t something we have struggled with, it’s not what we farm to do. We have a tremendous team of staff all of whom love the cows and calves as much as we do. We would become less hands on and more office based. We wouldn’t be milking our own cows and this is not what farming is to us. It’s a passion, It’s a love and it’s a way of life. Its an upbringing for our children. Its amazing and brilliant and its hard work! But we are proud.

In our opinion we’d rather milk our 260 ladies well than go bigger and not be able to manage the cows ourselves. Maybe this is wrong and if you asked every expert that appears here, they’d say we need to be milking more cows but whilst we are able to be on the farm and caring for the cows ourselves, we can be confident that they are all getting the individual care that they deserve.

We listened to a talk by Abi Reader last week who also appeared on the Panorama programme. The take home message from her talk last week for me was. “I live very near to Barry, one of the poorest towns in the UK. When I see the cars at 9am taking children to school many of whom have empty stomachs. That is who we are doing it for.” And she is right. Whilst we all know that milk is bought and sold too cheap and the current price is completely unsustainable. We need to be aware of our vast privilege when looking at models such as the Ethical dairy because as idealistic as this approach is. It is not affordable to many of those that really do need milk as their main source of nutrition. There is however a happy medium which I believe is a family run dairy farm of modest proportions.

So it begs the question. Is this documentary marking a U turn to bring us back and advocate the small family farm?

As a final point, for any non-farming readers. If you want to change something, you need to be part of it. Agriculture in general is suffering a huge labour shortage so be part of something amazing and apply for a job in the industry!