Farm Diary December 3 2008

It's hard to believe that November has gone; it was a spectacular month earlier, as the trees hung on to their leaves, with yellow being the dominant theme as autumn showed its magnificent display once more. One disappointment was the complete absence of sloe berries, which I can only put down to frost in the spring.

I generally pick sloes each year, and make some sloe gin and sloe brandy, and I can't remember not having any to pick before. Luckily I have some vintages around from the last two or three years, as I tend to admire the colour even more than the taste.

We had a problem with our milk cooling last week, due to electrical works in the yard causing the chillers to trip. Routine checks before milking began were not carried out, and we ended up with a vat of warm milk which the tanker could not pick up.

Luckily, once in action our cooling system is very good and the milk was down to temperature by the next milking, and all quality tests were passed. This sort of problem is not good for my health, and we are currently re-visiting procedures.

Our routine pickup at around midnight has now been changed as milk production in the area goes up, and for the first time in over two years we have a day pickup. The company has also switched to every-other day pickup for the first time, which will save us money on energy and chemicals, due to the cooling effect of chilled milk in the tank and only half the number of tank-washes every week.

I was listening to our new Agriculture Minister on the 'Farming Today' programme the other day, and she was under serious pressure to explain why government procurement was not more supportive of British agriculture, and why was it that by importing cheap product, government agencies were not supporting their own legislation and 'Farm Assured Standards' on environment and animal welfare in this country.

It has to be said that she was on the back foot from the minute the questions started, with pitiful amounts of pig meat in particular being bought, at a time when our pig farmers are being driven out of business due to 80% of pig meat imported to this country not meeting our animal welfare standards.

When asked if she supported British agriculture and if she thought everyone should by British, she answered that the presenter knew full well that she could not make such a statement. Can you imagine a French Agriculture Minister saying that?

Last week was eventful to say the least, with some very bad news for dairy farmers. Dairy Crest wrote to their organic milk suppliers to tell them that they have far too much organic milk, and therefore a cut of 4p per litre was necessary to address the situation, unless a significant number of organic dairy farmers converted temporarily to conventional production.

I reacted strongly to this news, because I knew that the company had been warned that it was far too bullish back in the spring and early summer when they were on an organic recruitment drive, taking on many more suppliers. Organic production is extremely tight at the moment with the very high cost of organic feed, and it really is not right to expect committed organic producers to temporarily revert to conventional production.

Organic milk and dairy products have been affected by the economic climate, but not by very much; nothing like the effect on organic red meat for example, which is of course considerably more expensive. Organic is a valuable niche market, which has been very successful over the last few years, and after the collapse of the organic milk price in 2000, when the market was over supplied, things have gone well.

It is annoying therefore to see mismanagement and lack of strategic planning causing unnecessary hardship and problems for farmers. Yet another reason for a more robust contract, so that these huge cuts cannot be carried out without serious consequences, which might lead to a little more thought and future planning by milk buyers.

That was but nothing to what happened next! Dairy Farmers of Britain, which is one of the large farmer Co-op's in this country with 2200 farmer member suppliers, announced a major re-structuring plan, due to the extreme financial difficulties they find themselves in.

They are planning to shut two factories, four distribution depots, cutting over 600 jobs; all of which will be funded by a 2p cut in the milk price which is backdated to the first of November.

We all knew that DFoB were working on their future plans, and that things could not carry on as they are, but the scale of the closures and the huge cut in the milk price will be a heavy blow to both employees and dairy farmers alike. Everyone's first instinct in these situations is to be supportive, but there are some serious questions to be answered in due course.