Compassion debates future of dairy on British television

Published 17/03/2010

Compassion has taken the debate over the future of dairy farming to national television - and you will be able to see the discussion for yourself on Countryfile in the next two weeks.

On Monday 15th March, Compassion's Phil Brooke met with Peter Willes, one of the farmers at the centre of Nocton Dairies' proposal to establish the UK's largest dairy farm.

In the debate, Phil explained the profound risk to animal welfare that arose from this development, which involves industrialisation of a traditional pasture based system, with cows bred to produce excessive amounts of milk. As a result they won't be allowed to graze whilst producing milk to prevent excessive loss of weight, potentially leading to infertility and an early journey to the slaughterhouse. In short, this is no life for a cow. Compassion believes that we should breed cows which are able to maintain health and production on a grass-based diet.

This development is also bad news for Britain's hard-pressed dairy farmers - it will not just compete with imports but will put good dairy farmers, who keep their cows on pasture, under even more financial pressure. More than ever, people are concerned about farm animal welfare and, as a consequence, more animals are being kept free-range. The future of dairy is in higher welfare, outdoor systems, not intensive factory farming operations like Nocton.

Update

The story of Nocton dairy and Compassion's perspective on the future of British dairy farming was covered by BBC Countryfile on Sunday 28th March 2010. The programme was a great synopsis of the arguments with some powerful imagery.