In many ways we are grateful for the all the rain we have in this country. Without it, we certainly wouldn’t be able to grow the lush green grass to feed our cows. But, I think we got more than our fair share in 2012 and we are finding ‘wet spots’ in a number of…
I read a headline on the Farmers Weekly website this morning saying “Dairies must pay more to secure supplies” – a headline that has been repeated in the farming press for years, a headline that is true and one that I fully support. But, why, despite all the protests, the public support, the fears…
There have been a number of useful articles published in the farming press over the past couple of months aimed at helping dairy farmers make better use of grass this spring (whenever that may be). However, I notice more and more seem to be erring on the side of caution when it comes to how…
A while back I posted a story about Dutch dairy farmers being rewarded for grazing their dairy cows by the milk processor Friesland Campina. The premium farmers receive is EUR 0.50 per 100 kg milk. To receive the premium, a dairy farmer must allow his or her cows to graze outdoors for at least 120…
The wet weather we had last summer, combined with the prolonged winter we have yet to escape, means that grass growth has been slow and the ‘green stuff’ isn’t as green as we would like it to be. We woke up to a white frost on Tuesday morning and didn’t feel much like spring. However,…
Here is an extract from a book I have just bought from Amazon. “Since the 1870’s British farmers have had neither stability nor security. Politicians’ promises have been made and forgotten, war-time prosperity has been followed by slump or uncertainty”. “The fundamental reason is not hard to find, the public, quite naturally, prefer to buy…
I’m digging holes and I’m measuring grass growth (or rather the lack of it) and, in the process, I’m measuring how cold it is by the numb feeling in my fingers as I walk the fields. I had a good stomp round most of our grass ground nearly two weeks ago with my trusty plate…
In my quest to produce more milk form grass I am going to really try and understand more about the grass we grow and the soils that feed it. So, today, I ventured out with my spade for a bit of an exploratory dig. Now, I’m no soil scientist, but I do know that looking…
Word is some folks have turned their cows out to grass already and, hopefully, it won’t be long before a lot more follow on farms around the country. Can you remember how it feels – the warmth of the sun, the smell of the earth, the sound of grass been tugged by hungry mouths? All…
At this week’s BGS / BSAS conference in Malvern, Mike Wilkinson from Nottingham University presented a paper titled “Trends and targets for milk from forage”, in which he highlighted how little milk actually comes from forage on many farms. Data collected from farms costed by Promar farm business consultancy showed that the average milk yield…
The horsemeat found in beef products throughout UK supermarkets may not have posed any significant risk to the health of those eating it, but it has caused widespread mistrust. The shocking findings by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) have exposed how the demand for cheap food has resulted in consumers being deceived on a massive…
Last week I had the privilege of being invited to a private screening of a new film called ‘Symphony of the Soil’. A whole hour and a half of people enthusing about soil – enough to send anyone to sleep I hear you say. But, no, not at all, it was fascinating and (dare…
At the Cattle Breeders Conference a year or two back I heard someone say that around 60% of UK beef originated from the dairy herd. This year I heard another speaker say that this figure is set to rise to 80%. Yet how many milk producers consider the role they play in producing beef and…
Whenever I go through our National Milk Records (NMR) reports, following monthly milk recording, I’m always grateful that we don’t seem to have any major problems with infertility in the herd – especially when I hear of the impact it is having on profitability on some farms. Our latest NMR fertility summary shows rolling 12…
At the start of what is a really important year for Free Range Dairy, I want to take a few minutes to remind people of why I set up the initiative and what I hope it will achieve. It seems to me that most of the things that are essential for our very existence we…
I was astounded to hear that as much as half of the food produced in the world does not reach people’s stomachs. According to a new report from the UK’s Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IME) between 1.2 and 2.0 billion tonnes of food produced around the world never makes it onto a plate. The IME’s…
After one of the most difficult years in living memory, many dairy farmers will be wondering whether or not they will still be milking cows at the end of 2013 and who can blame them? The squeeze put on milk prices back in the early summer, dreadful weather and the continuing increase in input costs,…
Here we are in the depths of winter at a time when days are short and nights are long. The grass is hardly growing right now and much of what there is lies under water. So it’s hard to think about the time when spring will come and we will be turning our cows out…