The sun shone and the cows looked happy and content in the fields, if a little curious as we got the barn ready and fired up the tea urn. At 11am people started arriving from all over Yorkshire and Lancashire and soon we had quite a big crowd trying free range milk from Stephenson’s Dairy…
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The first Countryfile Live event took place at Blenheim Palace from the 4th to the 7th August this year and joined free range milk suppliers, Cotteswold Dairy, on their stand for a couple of days. In recent years, some have been critical of BBC Countryfile for its lack of coverage of British food and farming, but…
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It is quite likely that, in the wake of the work we have done to promote traditional, seasonally grazed dairy farms and the wonderful milk they produce, others will begin to label milk as ‘free range’, reassuring consumers that cows have “access to grazing” for much of the year. However, in many instances, this may…
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TV chef and good food ambassador, Jamie Oliver, has established an ambitious new initiative to bring about a global revolution in food and we have been invited to join in and tell the world about the work of the Free Range Dairy Network CIC and its aims. You can read the full details on Jamie’s…
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When we think of our countryside we always think of cows in fields. Cows have been part and parcel of our lives since we were children but they go back much further than that. They occupy a unique role in our history and have been domesticated since at least the early Neolithic age. Early Neolithic populations who domesticated cattle as well…
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July 1st 2016 marks the second birthday of the Free Range Dairy Network. Our ‘birth certificate’ below from Companies House shows the date we created our Community Interest Company (CIC) and embarked on our stated social mission “to promote the value of pasture-based milk production on British dairy farms for the benefit of cows, consumers…
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By Jenni Hobbs, The Hobbs family at Barhouse Farm. I am writing this blog sat beside my husband Jerry on a stack of bales watching and bidding at a friend’s dispersal sale. A dispersal sale is the total sale of a whole herd of cows and this particular one today belongs to one of, if not the best,…
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It was a gorgeous day and we had a great turn out. Neil, with help from farm dog Sonny, was there to sign people in and give them a name badge. We had about fifty people attend on the day, all catered for by Jenni, the farmer’s wife who put on a fantastic buffet with…
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It is unsurprising, in the wake of the work we have done to raise awareness that not all milk is the same, others are now looking to establish labels providing an assurance that dairy cows are grazed in fields. Waitrose launched a new TV advert in April, shortly after I appeared on BBC Countryfile talking…
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One year on for Stephenson’s Dairy and Free Range Dairy … I was at Cup North, part of Spin Manchester, this weekend helping Chris of Stephenson’s Dairy with his milk stand. Chris was also providing all the Free Range milk for the coffee roasters J Atkinson & Co. Ltd, Casa Expresso and Ancoats Coffee Co,…
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See the latest film from Free Range Dairy Network and meet the cows and farmers that supply the milk under the Pasture Promise label.
As the big question looms over whether we stay or leave the EU, we’re hearing about immigration, the NHS and cost to UK households but just as important but not getting the column inches in the media is food and farming. Understandably people are concerned about housing, education, jobs and health but for real unrest…
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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…
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In the UK we’ve got used to having what seems like a limitless choice when it comes to our food purchases. In the supermarkets chiller section, we see row upon row of milk that’s standard, organic, semi, skimmed and whole fat. We buy 80% of our milk in one of the main major supermarkets and…
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By Prof John Ikerd, Professor Emeritus of Agricultural & Applied Economics University of Missouri, Columbia College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources and well respected and published author on ‘factory farming’ in the USA. Please support the crowd fund project to keep cows in fields and our traditional dairy farmers in business. When I read Jenni Hobbs’…
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Whilst hundreds of farmers gather in London on Wednesday March 23rd, to protest at further milk price cuts, the dairy cows belonging to the Hobbs family at Barhouse Farm in a small village, near Gloucester, will be turned out to grass for the summer months ahead, quite possibly for the last time. We want…
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By Jenni Hobbs, The Hobbs family at Barhouse Farm. Today was one of those days that you just think ‘why do we bother’. After a great day with Free Range Dairy discussing plans to celebrate Spring Turnout (where the cows leave their winter shed and move out into the fields for the Spring/Summer/Autumn to graze),…
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World Animal Protection are asking people to sign their Full Fact Milk pledge and join them in calling for clear milk labelling and ask supermarkets and shops to put Free Range Milk on shelves. If you click here you can find out more about their campaign and watch their video, which features some of our Free…
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There have been stories in both The Sunday Times and The Telegraph recently, about the anticipated exodus of up to 2,000 farmers from the UK dairy industry in the coming year, as the milk crisis continues unabated. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a crisis as “a decisive moment” or “a time of danger or great…
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I went to a really interesting seminar this week organised by Food Thinkers Collaboration about Ecofeminism with Professor Mary Mellor of Northumbria University and renowned food investigative journalist Shelia Dillon. Ecofeminism is a word if I’m honest I’ve never come across before but I found a lot of what was discussed made sense in relation…
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