And writing from Wisconsin, having just seen the US mega-dairy on which the Nocton proposal was based, I’m able to appreciate still further what this victory means. It’s a victory for Britain’s human-scale dairy farmers, for dairy cow welfare, for the local community in Lincolnshire and for the environment. It’s also a victory for the future integrity of our milk.
The campaign brought together a broad and diverse range of people and interests; foodies, environmentalists, animal welfarists, family farmers, local people and more. It was this very diversity that made the campaign so strong. And it points to future winning strategies – that the campaign to end factory farming need not, and should not, be solely about animal welfare, hugely important though it is. It speaks to the fact that factory farming all too often threatens our environment, our public health and the quality of our food. And that these linkages are increasingly being recognised. They are increasingly motivating people.
There is now huge opportunity to mobilise against factory farming in a way that engages people on their terms and their interests, and it need not always be about animal welfare. These wider concerns can often be more powerful. Indeed, in the case of the Nocton proposal, it was the objection by the Environment Agency that appeared to prove the knock-out blow.
Here in Wisconsin, I had the opportunity to see a 3,200 cow dairy farm. It’s run on a zero-grazed basis, meaning that the cows don’t get access to pasture for much of their life. And as I walked along the huge cow barn over a third of a mile long, I had to remind myself that the original proposal for Nocton was two and half times bigger in terms of cow numbers!
In the course of the campaign, I’ve spoken with the men behind the former Nocton proposal, I’ve travelled to Devon to see one of their existing farms, and, of course, I’ve now been to the Wisconsin farm that the proposal was based on. I’ve learned a lot through talking with the people behind the plans. I’ve found them passionate about what they do and committed to their way of dairying. On each occasion, however, I’ve come away convinced that cows deserve better than life in a factory farm environment of concrete and sand, whatever the size. I am more convinced than ever that cows belong in fields.
The last few months have put a spotlight on the previously unnoticed industrialisation of dairying. I recently spoke on the same platform as a representative of the Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers (RABDF). From him, I learned that the average herd size in the UK isn’t much more than 100 cows. Less than 2% of Britain’s dairy herds are zero-grazed, housed all year round, representing less than 10% of cows. Worryingly, there’s already a 2,000 cow herd in the UK, and the trend is towards bigger herd sizes.
By comparison, about half of the milk in the US comes from herds of more than a thousand cows. Here in Wisconsin, there are more dairy cows than any other US state, with over 80% permanently housed. But the world’s largest mega-dairy is said to reside in Saudi Arabia, where 37,000 cows are said to be kept on a single site.
The size of a ‘mega-dairy’ of thousands of cows, often crowded on concrete and sand, is symptomatic of a system that has become divorced from the land and is pushing the dairy cow to her physical limits.
With Nocton, we have all won a hugely important battle. However, the campaign against the industrialisation of dairy farming goes on. There is an urgent need for key stakeholders to work together; dairy farmers, retailers, milk processors and government, to work out how to bring about a market environment that supports the sustainable, human-scale dairying that we otherwise face losing.
We should use the breathing space that we’ve achieved to help create that better future. And remember that when Nocton Dairies announced they were withdrawing plans, they also spoke of considering options for the future and signed off by saying, ‘Watch this space!’.
So, as I sit in my Wisconsin hotel room, my flight cancelled due to snow, I reflect on my visit. Well, I did what I said I’d do on British national radio: come out to the States to the mega-dairy that ‘inspired’ the Nocton proposal. I’m glad I’ve done that. I’m glad that the Nocton proposal is withdrawn. Cows belong in fields.
Philip Lymbery is chief executive of Compassion in World Farming. This blog is reproduced by kind permission.
© FoodBev Media Ltd 2024