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,…
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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…
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I found an interesting article on the website Dairy Herd Network www.dairyherd.com which provides a lot of news on the US dairy industry. Nigel Cook, the incoming President of The American Association of Bovine Practitioners, manages the Dairyland Initiative Programme at the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine. The Dairyland Initiative was launched in…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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What burgers should teach us. BRITISH FARMERS The problem we have had with all our milk and meat lately is we get paid a price below the cost of production. It’s about the whole farming industry. This has made us realise we have to engage much more with consumers if we are…
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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…
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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…
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It doesn’t look like the ground is going to dry up round here for a month or so yet, which means that the prospects of an early turnout for our cows have pretty much vanished. Meanwhile silage stocks are getting tighter and I am keeping a close eye on what we use and being very…
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Imagine a dairy farm running 50 cows, which were milked once a day whilst their calves were left to suckle until they reached six to eight months of age, producing high quality milk and meat to be processed on farm and sold direct to local customers. The herd I have described above sounds very…
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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…
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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…
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We have now added a new page to the Free Range Dairy website. In the menu across the top of the Home Page you will now find a new tab marked ‘Pasture Promise’. Click on this to find out more about our Free Range Dairy standards, details of how you can sign up and some…
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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…
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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…
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BBC regional news programme, Inside Out (East), re-examined the future of the UK dairy industry. Speaking to the programme, economist Sean Rickard says “Bigger units are the future. They can compete. All smaller units can look forward to is greater pressure until they are forced to give up.” However, Mr Rickard’s claims are rejected…
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We may still have a lot of winter to come but having got our cows milking well now and with no TB tests for a week or two and I have found a bit of time to look ahead the spring and the forthcoming grazing season. With silage winter stocks tight and a yearning for…
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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…
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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…
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