Dairy farms

R

redhead

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I have received WSPA's quarterly update and it says that there are two massive American-style "industrial" dairy farms being trialled in Lincolnshire.

Obviously the welfare of x thousand cows being kept permanently indoors is a worry, but how will such a massive operation affect our already hard-pressed dairy farmers?

With the lack of rain already a problem affecting the second-cut of silage in the South West, what are the implications for dairy farming when combined with the repulsive-sounding experiment taking place in Lincolnshire?
 
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I thought that the dairy farms hadn't been built yet, and were just at the planning permission stage, and that there didn't seem to be much chance of the mega-dairy going ahead. There was also a riposte which said that the cows would be released to graze. They'd be milked three times a day instead of twice, according to some article I read in a newspaper.
 
This has been discussed extensively by the farming press. I am not quite sure where I stand on this one, although I really do not think any welfare standards will be compromised - very much the reverse, in fact. It's more the economic impact on milk priceing which worries me.

Anyway, this is the latest from one of the four farmers involved with Nocton Dairies:

http://www.farmersguardian.com/home/livestock/livestock-news/%E2%80%98we%E2%80%99re-not-the-bad-guys%E2%80%99-nocton-dairies-farmer-speaks-out/33676.article

PS - The Daily Nazi has a proper anti-farming campaign underway - God know why but it's the silly season after all and they're safe enough going after agriculture, as they can be certain no one has the money to sue 'em!
 
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Good information on there, Songs. As soon as someone says 'battery' there's an immediate thought of the plight of de-beaked, de-feathered, deformed battery hens. I like that the cows will be on a sand base. I like sand - our stables in Libya were all on sand and, apart from hefting well-weed loads of it out in a wheelbarrow (did the pecs a lot of good!), I think it's a very comfortable base for standing on in particular. Much kinder to feet than concrete and easy to dig out and refresh.

I love the idea of the digestor plant recycling the slurry. It amazed me to find out recently that quite a lot of 'green energy' is provided by the offal from the meat trade - you don't get told that by the Greens, do you, who rather like to give the impression that they live off nettle soup and fallen nuts. It seems a huge price to pay for the outfit but, as the man says, it'll be very openly accountable re health issues.
 
One of the cons is that the cows will be housed nearly 24/7 but, having said that, dairy cows, especially Holsteins, will often choose to stay in rather than go out and face the flies! Not sure what milking system they are using - the Daily Nazi's claim that they were being milked '24 hours' is just so misleading it makes me spit! What that actually means is that they may be using the robot sytem, where cows choose themselves when they want to go and be milked out by walking onto the rotary parlour, the clusters attach automatically as the cluster has 'memorised' that particular cow's udder conformation, cow gets milked and then goes off the parlour over to the feeding area where her hard grub will be automatically dispensed in the right amount according to how she is milking. Some cows choose to be milked more frequently than others but the system is proved to really reduce mastitis problems, although I gather the first nine months of setting the system up is incredibly hard work!

I don't know how close any houses are to Nocton and I agree, I wouldn't want to live right next door to it unless it was mine. But if we're talking a 1/4 mile away plus, then I can't honestly think it would pose much of a problem.

Environmentally, it will be so modern and will use so much green technology, it will be positively better than many mid sized 'older' dairy farms, for sure.

But if we were to get another Foot & Mouth outbreak, then the consequences for such a large unit would be pretty terrifying.
 
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Thanks for your views, Songsheet. I did wonder how it would affect other dairy farmers.

Certainly WSPA go for the emotional thing in order to raise cash, but no one else has mentioned the other endangered species - the farmer, so I thought that I would get your angle and those of others.
 
1st, Welfare
2nd Enviroment

If the supermarkets/us paid farmers a decent amount of money for milk we would still have enough dairy farms in this country to supply us with ample milk & we would not have to resort to bovine battery farms, if cows want to stay inside let them but at least give them the choice
 
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... and they should also have the right to keep their own milk, raise a family and not have humans interfering with their titties.

Altogether now ... Free Will For Cows! Free Will For Cows!
 
Are you sure, Songsheet and Krizon, that you are taking the sheer scale of the proposed factory into account?

8,100 cows, 8 sheds 288m long (almost three football pitches in length), enough slurry to power 2,000 homes...

Slurry, whole milk, dirty yard water and dilute dairy and parlour washings are all many times more dangerous to watercourses than the equivalent volume of even something as obviously harmful as raw sewage.

I wonder why they don't prefer to build this on a derelict dockland site, where they might even be able to benefit from grant aid, rather than in open countryside.
 
There was an edition of Countryfile fairly recently (possibly back end of last year, beginning of this) where one of the presenters went over to the US to see the type of ''mega dairy'' they have in operation over there. I don't think it's available on iplayer any more but it was very interesting with plenty of viewpoints from the site manager and nearby neighbours. Some neighbours comlained about the smell but I can't honestly remember if that was for the dairy or the giant scale pig farm. Not really sure how I feel about it to be honest. Animal welfare would have to be a top priority but I'd also be concerned about the effect such a large operation might have on the livelyhoods of the smaller scale farmers.
 
What do you think would happen to the muck you mention, Grey, were it to be split over several smaller farms? Disappear with a twinkle from a fairy's wand? The good thing about one huge pile o'cowpats would be the chance to turn it into fuel. We are incredibly wasteful here, when pretty much all of India's rural millions (and semi-urban) dry the pats into discs which are then used for firelighting (and don't smell). Probably because, overall, we're too bloody twee.

You do have existing models to see how it's done without, one assumes, endangering nearby human life - which wouldn't be very nearby, set in the vast rural spaces of the USA. As for the idea of putting it bang into an urban area where the muck could go straight into the nearest watercourse - just how much disease are you aiming to spread? And the cows were to be given access to rest in pasture land, last time I saw this mooted on tv.

Anyway, it's been knocked on the head (for now), so discussion's a bit superfluous at the moment.
 
I suggest you read about the proposals, Grey and Aldaniti, then put forward properly based objections to the plans with supporting evidence as to why it's 'battery farming' and where the environmental dangers are not properly managed.

First off, they reduced the application from 8100 cows, to some 3600. They were/are also building anaerobic biodigesters to complement the slurry output, creating energy. The regulations surrounding the proposal and the health, safety and welfare issues were absolutely rigorous and the reason they've pulled out is because the money they have already had to invest has been tremendous and the last hurdle put the kibosh on it.

See here http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/2011/02/16/125538/VIDEO-Nocton-withdraws-plans-for-super-dairy.htm

I can understand your concerns but the days of small UK dairy farms are disappearing fast. There were six in my area when I came here 11 years ago, now there are two. If we continue to bar applications like this, then rest assured the dairy products we will all be consuming will not be UK produced but will be imported and you have absolutely no idea about animal welfare issues in other countries, let alone any control over them. You can spout off as much as you like about supermarkets need to pay more, we all need to pay more but it simply isn't going to happen unless government steps back in and we go back to the days of the Milk Marketing Board when there was control over farm gate prices. We've all become used to cheap food and the supermarkets are not voluntarily going to lose one of their most profitable lines.

Having seen large dairies in operation now and also knowing how ridiculously hard small dairy farmers operating with 80 - 150 cows have to work and how each year, reinvestment into buildings and machinery becomes less and less manageable, then operations like Nocton, based here in the UK where they will be rigorously managed and where animal welfare will have to be the highest priority of all, personally it's the lesser of two evils because small dairy farms are disappearing so fast.

If a cow has a decent bed, proper space to exercise herself and good forage and hard grub, then she couldn't care less whether she's inside or out! Although as I understand the plans, there were outside loafing areas too.
 
I saw that countryfile episode where they were in america - and to be honest, it looked like it worked well - obviously theirs had been up and running for a long time,but all the cows looked happy,they went and got milked when they wanted to,on that big roundabout thing - all the cows were healthy looking (as far as I could tell!!) and unhealthy,unhappy cows dont produce milk...

I was expecting to hate it - Im not a massive fan of mass produced things at all, but I didnt. not saying that I loved the concept - but if it runs as enviromentally friendly as possible and the welfare of the cows is paramount (which obviously over here its going to be much better than elsewhere - and theres no way those cows had a bad life) then I dont see a problem.

shame for UK producers that its fallen through.
 
Songsheet said:
I suggest you read about the proposals, Grey and Aldaniti, then put forward properly based objections to the plans with supporting evidence as to why it's 'battery farming' and where the environmental dangers are not properly managed.

First off, they reduced the application from 8100 cows, to some 3600. They were/are also building anaerobic biodigesters to complement the slurry output, creating energy. The regulations surrounding the proposal and the health, safety and welfare issues were absolutely rigorous and the reason they've pulled out is because the money they have already had to invest has been tremendous and the last hurdle put the kibosh on it.

See here http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/2011/02/16/125538/VIDEO-Nocton-withdraws-plans-for-super-dairy.htm

I can understand your concerns but the days of small UK dairy farms are disappearing fast. There were six in my area when I came here 11 years ago, now there are two. If we continue to bar applications like this, then rest assured the dairy products we will all be consuming will not be UK produced but will be imported and you have absolutely no idea about animal welfare issues in other countries, let alone any control over them. You can spout off as much as you like about supermarkets need to pay more, we all need to pay more but it simply isn't going to happen unless government steps back in and we go back to the days of the Milk Marketing Board when there was control over farm gate prices. We've all become used to cheap food and the supermarkets are not voluntarily going to lose one of their most profitable lines.

Having seen large dairies in operation now and also knowing how ridiculously hard small dairy farmers operating with 80 - 150 cows have to work and how each year, reinvestment into buildings and machinery becomes less and less manageable, then operations like Nocton, based here in the UK where they will be rigorously managed and where animal welfare will have to be the highest priority of all, personally it's the lesser of two evils because small dairy farms are disappearing so fast.

If a cow has a decent bed, proper space to exercise herself and good forage and hard grub, then she couldn't care less whether she's inside or out! Although as I understand the plans, there were outside loafing areas too.
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Songsheet, my doubts about proposals of this kind are related entirely to their proposed rural location.

I accept that the welfare aspects are properly taken care of, and I didn't raise any objection to them. Payments to all EU farmers (not just in the UK) are conditional on compliance with welfare requirements. There is an EU-wide inspectorate which has the power to recover money from Member States which fail to enforce them.

I wasn't aware the latest proposal reduced the number of cows by more than half, the link to the Farmers Guardian put up yesterday didn't mention that. Nevertheless. my doubts about the location would remain. This type of farming doesn't need to be in open countryside, and the environmental repercussions are better dealt with in a location with the proper infrastructure, including a decent road network.
 
I honestly can't see that such an enterprise should be anywhere else but in a rural location - the bio-digester for a start will need inputs from rural locations which sort of precludes relocating the enterprise anywhere else. If the enterprise isn't located in rural countryside, where is it going to be situated? On the outskirts of a town/village ? That will be welcomed with open arms!

I love the disingenuous statement re the EU wide Inspectorate - you obviously haven't seen how pigs are raised in Denmark, welfare standards which are perfectly acceptable to the EU but which are far lower than those imposed in the UK by AHO. I am not saying that Danish pig breeders are actively cruel - they're not - but stocking densities and rearing methods are without doubt worse than here but perfectly legal. Remember this next time you go for cheap Danish bacon at the supermarket!

We've a long way still to go in this country re welfare standards for our stock but, while there are always going to be a few farmers who let everyone else down, in the main the majority do a decent job. But what concerns me most is that standards have slipped in many dairy farms, especially the smaller, family run farms that everyone has such an idyllic vew about. Costs year on year ever only go upwards but milk prices have dropped, which means every cow has to yield more, you watch every single penny you spend, lameness in dairy cows increases as does mastitis and other stress related illnesses, if you're in a bTB hotspot, stressed animals are prime receptors for the virus - what used to be a pleasant industry to work in now is just a slog. Which is why so many dairy farms are disappearing. Those hanging in there are doing so because they are mainly selling to co-ops like Milk Link which they will own shares in and hoping those shares will come good. Most remain because they know no other way of life and having been self-employed, would find it difficult doing anything else, although many have had to suck it up and do so. The average age of the UK farmer is now 56, I believe - so it doesn't bode too well for the future. Especially as many Councils are selling / have sold their Council starter farms, making it difficult for younger people to start out.

Jimmy Docherty's latest TV offering is so far removed from reality it's painful to watch but credit to him for trying to keep farming in the media spotlight!
 
Songsheet said:
I thought I was, Aldaniti and asking you why you thought so -but evidently being emotive about it is sufficient for you to make a response and conveniently ignore the actual proposal and methodology behind it.
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How have I ignored you? if you look a bit closer you will see that I have replied to your question above, my opinion is just as worthy as yours, so what if I am not a bovine expert, I just don't like it,

The company have admitted that as soon as the smaller unit is up & running they will be pushing to expand it to its full capacity
 
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I love the disingenuous statement re the EU wide Inspectorate - you obviously haven't seen how pigs are raised in Denmark, welfare standards which are perfectly acceptable to the EU but which are far lower than those imposed in the UK by AHO. I am not saying that Danish pig breeders are actively cruel - they're not - but stocking densities and rearing methods are without doubt worse than here but perfectly legal.
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I thought we were talking about dairy farming. In any case, 'disingenuous' is a nasty word to be using. I was merely explaining that I didn't see welfare standards as an issue.

Regarding suitable locations, I already suggested above that derelict dockland sites could be suitable. There are thousands of acres available in places like Hull, Grimsby, Liverpool and many more places. After all, Rotterdam is already one of the main centres of pig production in the Netherlands.
 
Grey said:
Songsheet, my doubts about proposals of this kind are related entirely to their proposed rural location.

Payments to all EU farmers (not just in the UK) are conditional on compliance with welfare requirements. There is an EU-wide inspectorate which has the power to recover money from Member States which fail to enforce them.
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You yourself refer above to the 'EU-wide inspectorate' concerning animal welfare - which is a general term covering all aspects, not dairy farming in particular. I wouldn't call using the wrod 'disingenuous' as being nasty, though but apologies if its use offended. My point is that relying on the base standards of the EU as providing an acceptable alternative for welfare standards for milk and allied dairy products produced within its boundaries may not be such a good idea.

There's no real reason why similar operations shouldn't be on brown field sites except that, obviously, this particular conglomerate happen to own farmland in this vicinity and want to expand their business there legally. As long as all planning rules and regs are properly followed, then I don't see that NIMBYism should be allowed to prevail. There will be farming odours surrounding the operation and, if you live in the country, that's just something you're used to - not sure the average town dweller would be so keen on that aspect! So keeping the dairies in the countryside is, in my opinion, a better solution.

In an ideal world, I would prefer there to be smaller, profitable dairy farms capable of making a decent living and able to reinvest in maintaining proper buildings and machinery but it's simply becoming less and less the norm.

Aldaniti - the purpose, I thought, of topics like this one is to share exchanges of opinion, backed up by reasoned argument as to why you hold that view. I stated you were ignoring the proposal and methodology behind it - not that you were ignoring me - I was merely asking you to expand on why you think it to be 'plain wrong'.
 
Animal welfare is not a reason for objecting to large scale farming, because (some) standards already apply. I suspect these standards will continue to be raised in response to public opinion, but I don't know of any reason why large scale farms would be less able to meet them than other farms.

On the location issue, there are of course pros and cons on both sides, there usually are where planning matters are concerned. However, if I was going to promote such a scheme I would look for a location well removed from the nimbies.

In an ideal world, I would prefer there to be smaller, profitable dairy farms capable of making a decent living and able to reinvest in maintaining proper buildings and machinery but it's simply becoming less and less the norm.
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I think most of us would prefer that the British, and European, countryside does not become reduced to a prairie dotted here and there with industrial buildings.

What to do? You mentioned the old Milk Marketing Board guaranteed farm gate price. The old-style CAP was based on a similar mechanism, something that is conveniently forgotten by a lot of people. The trouble was, that in the end production was stimulated so effectively that it became overproduction.

The latest approach has been to cut the link between subsidy and production, and to make payments to farmers conditional on welfare and environmental standards (you know much more about this than I do, but I'm just explaining a few basics for anyone else who might be following this thread). The idea was to remove the direct incentive to engage in ever more intensive agriculture, and to give farmers a reasonable, guaranteed income for farming their land in a responsible way.

One of the hopes was that this would encourage more farmers to move into organic and higher end farming. If market forces continue to overwhelm these hopes, I don't know what the solution will be, but the policy makers will have to think again.
 
Ha! From what I've gleaned about 'organic' farming vis-a-vis animals, I'd say a resounding NO to that! How can it be 'organic' when, as Songy's said, there are so many cases of lameness and mastitis? The animals are going to have to be vet-treated to cure their problems, which rules out 'organic'. I've heard of 'organic' meat herds where the poor bastards were suffering from ringworm which could not be treated as that would lose the farm its organic tag. Where's the welfare in that?

Perhaps Songsheet could confirm if that's true, although Grey has presumably piles of edicts in front of him which could do likewise?
 
There are more and more farmers leaving organic status every month, because they simply cannot make it pay - especially in dairying. High end production is all very well but there's a limited market for the product which, along with organic farming, is more expensive to produce. While we do use some nitrogen based fertilizer here for grass production, the very fact it is so expensive to purchase means you use less of it and that would be the only difference on this farm with regards to how 'organically' we farm. And even nitrates are produced from basic chemicals found 'naturally'!

I'm truly worried that the general public are being forcefed programmes like Hugh Fearnley Whittindsall's and Jimmy Docherty's, filmed in never ending sunshine and making out it's possible to make 25 acres pay its way. Is it f*ck! Don't get me wrong, I like them both and believe they try to present farming in a more faviourable light but in my limited experience, that's really not reality at all.

Subsidies virtually disappear in a few year's time (2014, I think) & I believe you'll then find a whole raft of farmers will give the two fingers to DEFRA and farm in the way they choose to, not how they're constantly being told to.
 
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