From petty customer theft to competing with the mega dairies, small farms are fighting against the tide to run a successful business, says Andrew Livingston.

If lockdown taught us one thing, it’s to buy local. in rural areas, milk vending machines became all the rage during 2020 as farmers learnt that they could cut out the middleman and sell straight to the suppliers.

An important by-product of farmers gaining more of their profit means that food has a much smaller carbon footprint. My final look at what farmers are doing to reach carbon neutral targets by 2040, puts the onus on the public to buy local!

The egg trade

Last year we decided to stop selling our eggs to St Ewe (a Cornwall-based packer) and instead became a producer for Foots, who are based just outside of Sherborne. Previously, with St Ewe, our eggs would be picked up in Dorset, driven for grading

in Cornwall and then taken to London to be sold. Madness, I know!
However, since our first flock of chickens, we have also sold our eggs on our gate to the passing trade. This has admittedly come with its issues; stolen eggs and money, with some ‘customers’ apparently believing that washers and lint are legal tender. What it does ensure though, is that our customers get the freshest produce possible, whilst seeing where their food comes from – that is the real joy of buying straight from the farm.

Take one avocado

Security dog Wilf considers egg guard duty a necessary chore I love avocado – but when you pick them up in the supermarket shelves can you envisage the land that it has grown on? Do you know
the impact of the water consumption of an avocado farm (two thousand litres of water are needed to produce just one kilo of avocados – four times the amount needed to produce a kilo of oranges, and 10 times what is needed to produce a kilo of tomatoes)? Do you know how many miles that fruit has travelled by sea and air to be smashed up and spread on your toast?
For years agricultural marketing campaigns have pleaded with the public to ‘Buy British’ in the supermarkets. But now it’s time to buy local. Being fortunate enough to be living in a rural county you will be amazed at what local produce you could buy – even without going to a (often overpriced) farm ‘shop’.

Most popular farm milk vending machines will be accompanied by a vending machine selling eggs, cheese, butter, maybe meat, condiments, soup or pies. You can buy all your staple foods in a way that not only supports your local farmer but helps to keep fuel and greenhouse gas emissions down.

The struggle of the small farm

Unfortunately, with the cost of animal feed and electricity as it is, small family-run farms are turning to selling direct to customers simply to be able to turn a profit. Especially daity farmers – larger and larger commercial dairies with in excess of 1,000 cows are keeping the cost of the milk low; meaning the small farm next door can’t get a decent price per litre to be able to make a living. In a simpler time, farmers would devote their time to pampering their animals to perfection. Now, farmers seem to need to spend their lives squeezing every last potential penny out of their farms just to stay afloat.

by Andrew Livingston

Sponsored by: Trethowans – Law as it should be

The community impact of Eunice, that Panorama documentary, and the government’s drive for rewilding – James Cossins muses on a busy few weeks.

Here at Rawston Farm we have managed to come through the week of three named storms relatively unharmed. We did lose our electricity supply for 24 hours, but with our generators at each dairy on standby we managed to continue milking our cows without too much disruption.

We lost a number of trees to the gales but fortunately they didn’t cause damage to our buildings. Our surrounding villages didn’t fare quite so well, with a loss of power for up to five days and nights with power lines being brought down by trees, and wooden power line poles breaking. It has been a challenging time for all but it has brought out the community spirit, with everyone helping neighbours out. I am sure when the wind has calmed down there will be lessons to be learnt as to the best way to cope in these situations.

A cow’s life

I am sure that many of the readers may have watched the Panorama programme portraying the life a dairy cow. As a dairy producer I was shocked at what I saw. I could not believe that humans could treat animals in this way. As was stated in the programme, most animal keepers would never treat their animals like this. We have various assurance schemes such as Red Tractor and in our personal case an Arla assurance scheme which goes into great detail on animal welfare and how to best treat animals. We
have protocols on how to handle animals and how to deal with emergencies. We all occasionally have a sick animal, and by following compassionate methods you are far more likely to nurse the patient back to a full recovery than if the anlmal was maltreated.

I hope readers understand that the actions taken on the farm featured in the documentary is very much an isolated occurance. I understand that following the programme, the farm was visited by various inspectors to question their welfare practices.

Rewilding or food security?

Recently the NFU held their annual conference which this year took place in-person. One of the key speakers was George Eustace, the Minister for the Environment, and it became clear that the Government is determined to go down the road of promoting rewilding of land, and growing crops for wildlife. Whilst I agree in certain circumstances it is appropriate on less favoured land to do this, the Government seem to have forgotten about food production and this country’s food security. With what is going on in the world at the time of writing, I would have thought the government would have put more emphasis on producing our own food for this country rather than relying on imports.

Spring begins

As we move through March we will be concentrating on sowing our barley and bean crops, and applying some fertiliser to kick start the autumn crops into their spring growth.

The dairy cows are already looking over the gate, waiting patiently to be let out to graze once more. And so yet another year’s cycle begins again.

by James Cossins

Sponsored by Trethowans – Law as it should be