If you were one of the many people watching Jamie & Jimmy’s Friday Night Feast on Channel 4, last Friday, you would have seen the feature on free range milk and the Pasture Promise logo. We are so grateful to Jamie and Jimmy for taking up our cause as a ‘Food Fight’ and helping us…
I’ve been lucky, very lucky. I have lived in some beautiful parts of the English countryside, worked with some inspiring people and had the privilege of enjoying a close relationship with nature all of my life. There are few jobs that can give one the sense of connection to the world around us like dairy…
The sight of 1,700 cows on one farm, as part of a feature on milk and dairy farming systems that I took part in, on last week’s BBC Countryfile caused an unprecedented reaction. Social media was alive with comment and debate, much of it expressing shock and horror at the scale of a farming operation producing…
In an article in the Independent (Nov 23rd 2015), about the rise of mega dairies advocates of industrial scale dairy farming suggested that the development of such facilities is essential to make milk production economically viable. However, this is something Free Range Dairy would challenge, as would Prof John E Ikerd quoted in the same article. Prof…
When I was getting a few jobs done on the farm early yesterday morning, before heading off for our Free Range Dairy meeting, I was heartened to hear BBC Radio 4 discussing opportunities to engage consumers and secure a fair price for milk, which reinforced my belief that we are on the right track. You…
Why are Britain’s supermarkets in a race to bottom right now and what will they find when they get there? I heard on the Today Programme this morning that Sainsbury’s are setting up a joint venture with Danish retailer Netto, in an attempt to take on the rapidly growing ‘discounters’. Meanwhile, Morrisons have just…
Thanks to Dr George Fisher for a really interesting article in the excellent June issue of British Dairying magazine. Dr Fisher explains “We don’t tend to think of grazed grass in the same way as other feeds like silage or concentrate, where we measure the energy content to judge its quality. But, we should do,…
“The farming lobby has wrecked efforts to defend our soil”. That was the title of a blog posted on The Guardian website by George Monbiot, last Thursday. The blog was referring to the National Farmers Union’s successful efforts to prevent the passing of an EU directive that was to set out a framework to protect…
I am delighted to have won the 2014 BBC Food & Farming Award for Outstanding Farmer of the Year. Listen here to the award ceremony. I was presented with the award by Adam Henson and Mike Gooding at a celebration of food and farming held in Bristol on Thursday evening. I was privileged to find myself in the…
I was really pleased to get the opportunity to outline what I’m trying to achieve with Free Range Dairy, on BBC Countryfile last night and even more pleased at the really positive response I’ve had from farmers and consumers since. If you didn’t get to see the programme last night, you can watch it here!…
As you may already have heard, I am very fortunate to have been selected as one of the three finalists in this year’s BBC Food & Farming Awards. Along with Luke Hasell who runs The Story Group specialising in delivering organic food direct to the public and Steven Jack, an innovative carrot and potato grower…
Alan Tovey reports in the Telegraph that Tesco is cutting the cost of four pints of milk from £1.39 to £1.00 today. Tesco joins others like Asda, Lidl and Aldi who have sold milk at this sort of price for some time now, as part of a campaign to “focus on everyday low prices on…
I have just been catching up on BBC Radio 4’s Farming Today programme from last week, which explored the future of the dairy farming and asked whether the British dairy industry really needs to grow to compete. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03c240q The NFU seem to be preoccupied with the need to produce another 4 billion litres of milk…
I was asked to give my thoughts on organic food and farming on Emma Britton’s programme on BBC Radio Somerset yesterday morning. I hope I gave a fair and balanced view of organic farming versus ‘conventional’ and my rationale for deciding not to convert to organic made some sense. I did ask some questions about…
Some football clubs get average attendances of around 10,000 spectators to watch them play each week. Not the biggest crowd for a football match, but can you imagine that number of people coming to your farm to watch your cows being turned out to grass? Well that’s what happened on a farm near Gothenburg in…
An article on the Farmers Weekly website highlights how milk producers supplying Marks & Spencer are supplementing cow diets with extruded Linseed to reduce saturated fat levels in milk. The article states: “Milk saturated fat levels naturally drop when cows go out to grass and increase at housing. This natural fluctuation is due to oil…
I have been invited to discuss the objectives of Free Range Dairy with Steven Lowe on BBC Radio Lancashire this Sunday (28th April) at around 12.45pm. We have had good support for the initiative from Lancashire and I am planning a further meeting for members in the north-west later next month. I am really encouraged…
Last Friday’s issue of the Farmers Guardian carried an article about plans for Free Range Dairy in the coming year. Political Editor, Alistair Driver, interviewed me at the recent event held by the APPG on Agroecology in Westminster. There is growing interest in the goals of Free Range Dairy amidst moves to encourage dairy farmers…
The discovery of equine DNA in beef burgers by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) this week has understandably caused widespread concern amongst shoppers. Reports say that from 27 beef burger products analysed, 37% were found to contain horse DNA and 85% tested positive for pig DNA. The chief executive of the FSAI, Professor…
Andrew Opie (British Retail Consortium) I’m really pleased that the BBC1 programme Rip Off Food managed to highlight the imbalance of power that still exists in the milk supply chain. You can find a link to episode 2 of this programme here (opens in a new window). But, how could Andrew Opie of The British Retail Consortium sit…