Farmers Weekly’s analysis of the sustained campaign against proposals to build the country’s largest dairy farm by animal welfare groups is a sobering warning to all in the farming industry who may be toying with an investment proposal at the moment.
While the plans ultimately fell prey to the Environment Agency, it was only after a prolonged attack from pressure groups who used simple (if not always entirely accurate) messages to win public hearts and minds and fill a yawning void the farming industry had left wide open. WSPA in particular explains how Nocton Dairies just happened to come along as it was looking for a UK cause to hang its hat on.
While most dairy farmers, vets and industry experts recognise that the cows at Nocton would have been superbly cared for in fantastic facilites, the pressure groups spotted a picture of dairy farming that would be unfamiliar to most middle England, and duly prised it wide open.
Despite the thousands of objections that were generated by the campaigns, public opinion still plays little part in the planning process which focuses instead on technical issues. However, the farm needed to co-operate with neighbours, have buyers and supply customers, and that’s what the pressure groups banked on.
It’s not easy for dairy farmers to know where to go from here. They face significant hardships on a daily basis in a market dominated by supermarket power; DairyCo reports that half work over 80 hours a week and three quarters pay themselves a salary of less than £20,000 a year. Despite this, we are short of milk. We currently import over 1.5bn litres worth of dairy products to the UK (that’s milk from over 214,000 average yielding dairy cows) and this is growing.
Many say the issue of supermarket power needs to be solved to allow a reasonable return to smaller farmers. This would indeed be a solution but not one that’s coming to town very soon. If the response, until these bigger market issues are resolved, is to gain economies of scale in not only dairy but also pig and potentially even beef production, then what are other farmers who try to tread this path facing?
I would suggest more of the same. Farming has been dealt a tough challenge by the government – produce more using less resources and do it more sustainably - but those attempting to pick up on the ‘sustainable intensification’ agenda clearly face considerable opposition.
So what can they do? Farmers need to communicate effectively with their communities, but cannot hope to fight misconception and single issue agendas on their own so the only way forward is a concerted industry response to give as good as it gets.
I’m talking about the industry getting to grips with where it really is on welfare and starting to deliver facts; I’m talking educating the public about what does actually signify a happy healthy animal; I’m talking dedicated press offices and proactive campaigns to show off the great ways we produce food in this country in a variety of manners; I’m talking imaginative use of social media and engaging ways to interest consumers in the challenges farming faces; and I’m talking about farmers en masse opening their doors to the public and sharing their good news stories.
Ironically, all these things are already happening to some degree and some excellent work is being done by individual organisations, but there still seems to be a lack of overarching strategy and, possibly, urgency.
Until such time as the whole farming industry recognises the full scale of the challenge it faces in closing the gap between perception and reality, and steps up its activities – as one -to get ahead of the game, I doubt whether there will be many innovative projects in which farmers will now have the confidence to invest.
