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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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,…
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Best wishes for a long and happy grazing season in 2013. From Free Range Dairy
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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…
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Several years ago I read about Ben & Jerry’s Caring Dairy Programme, which was launched in the Netherlands in 2003. This is a collaborative project involving Ben & Jerry’s, dairy farmers, cheese makers, research centres and the World Wide Fund for Nature. The programme set out 11 key indicators of sustainability for dairy farming. Now…
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I now have Free Range Dairy farm signs available for anyone who wants to declare their commitment to grazing their cows. The signs incorporate the Free Range Dairy logo, our Pasture Promise logo and a simple line saying “Cows graze on our farm”. The cost of the signs is £15.00 each. However, for those that…
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Have you heard about the Rural Development Programme for England (RDPE) Dairy Fund? In July 2012, the Prime Minister announced that £5m would be made available to the dairy sector under the RDPE to help dairy producers increase their competitiveness and achieve added value to boost their market returns. The aims of the fund…
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I am just putting some information together for farmers who have signed up to Free Range Dairy and made the Pasture Promise. With a broad cross section of milk producers from around the UK we are now able to start pulling the movement together and win recognition for the way we farm. I shall be…
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