Global Justice Now have organised events across the UK with farmers from Bangladesh to talk about Monsanto. You might have heard about CETA and TTIP, both trade agreements which could see profits put before people but you might not have heard about Monsanto and according to the presentation their ‘seed piracy’. The talk with food…
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It’s that time of year when we can feel the world around us changing, as suddenly summer seems to have slipped away. Shortening daylight, colder mornings, mist and dew, accompanied by a rich hue of orange and gold colours splashed across the once green landscape, announce the arrival of autumn. Still today, in mid October,…
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Free Range Dairy Network is a member of the Food Research Collaboration and I was pleased to attend the workshop looking at collaboration between civil society and academics recently. The workshop explored the barriers and challenges to collaborating and in my previous role as a campaigner I have plenty of experience of when collaboration works…
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Free Range Dairy Network is a member of the Food Research Collaboration and I was pleased to attend the workshop looking at collaboration between civil society and academics recently. The workshop explored the barriers and challenges to collaborating and in my previous role as a campaigner I have plenty of experience of when collaboration works…
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The recently released State of Nature Report with contributions from more than 50 conservation groups, claims ‘policy-driven’ intensification of farming is a significant driver of nature loss in the UK. The report assessed 8,000 species and found that one in ten are threatened with extinction. In a report by BBC Environmental Correspondent, Claire Marshall, lead author of…
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This week we ran our last Free Range Dairy event of the summer at Bar house farm in Gloucestershire. Jenni and Jerry along with their cows have been the stars of the events. Jenni making free range cakes and everything in between for lunches that people couldn’t resist after a walk around the farm, pictures…
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We have outgrown our Finding Free Range Dairy map. We have added so many new locations to the map making it geographically less accurate. So, we have now replaced it with, not one but two new Google maps – Finding free range and Case studies. Google maps are so much more versatile and easier to…
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Free Range Dairy Network is entering the film competition Picture This about what communities across the world are doing to help protect the environment. I was excited to make the film as although we talk about cow, consumers and farmers as our core messages, we believe we can make a positive environmental contribution to the…
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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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