Originally from: David
                        
Farming is going totally in the opposite direction to what people in the UK say they want, what the environment needs and what animal welfare people say is needed.

Driven by pure economics whilst competing against more heavily subsidised imports from other less regulated countries that have been given access to our markets, UK farmers are forced to intensify ever more. Compare this to the average farmer in the EU 14 who manages with 40 (well cared?) for cows, dairy farmers are now increasing their herds to more than 500 cows. Not only that but they are being forced to squeeze every last drop of milk by milking them three times a day. In fact the only profit is probably from the extra 10% of milk that is squeezed out by milking the herd three times a day. In the USA some farmers even give injections of BST at 3 week intervals to enhance milk production by up to another 15% and they also want access to our market. BST is a synthetic hormone which replicates the hormone found naturally in the highest yielding cows. So you can actually breed for it. BST is banned in the EU.

To all intense and purposes this is factory farming – a milk producing factory The cows will be housed in free stalls or cubicles every day of the year apart from the dry period, if she is lucky enough to be dry in the summer. (a cow has a holiday for two months before she calves again). Some herds may go out to graze for three months in the spring but this will cause the milk to drop on all except the low yielders who are coming to the end of their lactations. These cows will be expected to average 30 litres a day for the whole lactation so in early lactation they will be giving up to 60 litres and at the end about 20 to 25 litres. Therefore even best spring grass is unlikely to sustain a stale milker in a high yielding herd. What I am saying is – she is not likely to see a field while she is in milk which will be for 10 to 12 months at a time. She will be fed a high energy diet of maize silage, a little grass silage, maize meal, maybe a little wheat, sugar beet nuts, high grade soya, rapeseed meal & palm kernel meal, maybe waste from biscuit and cake making, brewers grains, minerals/vitamins etc. The silages will be grown on the farm but the rest will be delivered 30 tonnes at a time and pre blended by the farmer. The TMR (Total Mix Ration) will be computer formulated, mechanically mixed/blended and fed ad lib all the time she is in milk. Her feeding and lying area will be concrete and it will scraped three times a day by tractor or by automatic scrapers. In Holland the cows are on mainly slats and in the USA these passageways are sometimes flushed with recycled water from the the dairy. There is a high level of skill and management needed for such a system which is demonstrated by the advert below which I came across recently on the internet. The cubicles will need to be kept clean and bedded to avoid high levels of environmental mastitis, vet visits will be needed for fertility work to get the cows back in calf and a great deal of management will be needed to comply with a huge raft of regulations and red tape.

It is a catch 22 situation for our farmers. Face the cost of expanding in order to (maybe) make a profit or get out before he loses any more. Most farmers will be squeezing in more cows to (by and large) the same facilities. This will put more stress on the staff and the animals. Many have decided that the huge cost of buying the milk quota and adding more buildings is just not worth it. Some will go on until the existing machinery and equipment is worn out and will give up then rather than re-invest. The inevitable is that the UK will go on producing its EU quota of 14bn litres but it will be done by 10,000 producers instead of 22,000 producers. There will be no fall in UK milk production as has been seen over the 30 years the EU has been running our agriculture – all that happens is that those that are left just take up the slack. Inevitably herd sizes are set to double to achieve this.

I guess dairy and beef farming is now going the same way as chickens and pigs.

Is it right? Undoubtedly it is "efficient", cost effective, will enable the farmer to compete against heavily subsidised imports and give the dairies and supermarkets cheap milk and dairy produce to make good profits with. It will "protect" our market from foreign imports. The criticism is that the cows don't seem to last so long as they used to. They are culled for reasons of mastitis, lameness and fertility mainly.

Is 500 cows too many? Most of us in the UK would say yes on welfare and environmental grounds. However, properly managed such herds do seem to be healthy otherwise they would not give so much milk. If the manager is not milking, he has more time to ensure the diet and health of the cows is well cared for. There is the advantage that cows can be grouped according to yield and stage of lactation to enable each group to have the right diet and the right management. In fact our competitors in NZ have herds of 500 cows as the norm albeit they are outside and give very little milk. In the USA there are plenty of 3000 cow herds with the milking parlour running 23 hrs a day. I visited one myself about 100 miles from Atlanta, Georgia where they were milking 2500 cows and they were just about to add another 500 cows. There was a truck on all day long carting slurry away, the feeder wagon was feeding from 7 am until 7pm and they were milking the cows day and night. The target was to milk them three times a day but if the equipment broke down, it might work out at 2.5 times – they just kept going in shifts! When I was there there were about 2250 cows in milk, averaging 8 gallons (36 litres) with three weekly BST injections. Daily milk production 18,000 gallons (82,000 litres) or three articulated tankers every day! The milk was pre cooled before being stored in insulated milk tanks – not refrigerated tanks as we do. There were a lot of cows with bad feet and lost quarters.

Comments?

David

Recent advert:
We require a Dairy Herdsperson to assist the Herd Manager on our dairy farm on the ........... estate. The 450 cow herd is tmr fed, milked three times a day and currently yields an average of 9,500 litres. Applicants must be enthusiastic team players who enjoy milking high yielding dairy cows and be capable of working to the highest standard of husbandry to achieve high levels of performance. The ability to undertake AI, foot trimming and good record keeping would be an advantage. We offer a range of benefits which include: Competitive rates of pay, a contributory pension scheme, generous holiday entitlement, free physiotherapy, excellent training and development opportunities

Having milked cows for years, I understand the need for free physiotherapy!