The Land 13 Winter 2012-13 MILES SIMON FAIRLIE follows the tortous route taken by on its way to the consumer, and examines some local alternatives.

he last ten days of July 2012 came as a welcome surprise Consulting’s recent report World Class Dairying — A Vision for Tto anyone who had begun to despair at the apathy of 2020 states that “there are significant opportunities for the UK British farmers. Faced with cuts of two pence per litre in the dairy sector to grow in the next few years” yet paradoxically price of milk, dairy farmers picketed supermarkets by day and predicts that this growth will require the loss of a further 42 per blockaded processors by night. After a week of repeated actions, cent of dairy farms, leaving us with just 8600.2 most of the cuts were withdrawn and the processing industry Meanwhile the number of cows per farm has risen, from an agreed to a voluntary code of conduct. average of 17 in 1950, to 125 in 2010, and Kite expect that to It was a hollow victory, of course. !e price now paid to most increase to 220 by 2020; and the productivity of these cows has dairy farmers is around 29 pence per litre, while production multiplied by two and a half, from an average of 2,800 litres costs, which were estimated at 30 pence a litre in July, had risen in 1950 to 7000 litres (see box on the next page). Dairy farms to 31.5 pence by the end of October, so many farmers are still are producing 18 times as much milk as they were in the fifties, operating at a loss. !e voluntary code of conduct, if it is worth but they are still going bust. the paper it’s written on, doesn’t offer much: its most valuable All of this seems particularly bizarre to anyone who has any concession is to allow dairy farmers who produce more than familiarity with the productive capacity of a single cow. A low their contract with a processor requires, to sell the surplus to yielding Jersey cow nowadays gives about 3,500 litres a year another company — something that in most sectors would be with a retail value of nearly £4000 — it produces enough nu- taken for granted. trition to keep three and a half adults alive for a year.. A top of It also came too late. In 2001 there were 26,500 dairy farms in the range, non-organic Holstein produces about 10,000 litres, the UK; by 2011 there were 14,700: we have lost nearly half with has a retail value of about £7500, and is sufficient to feed of them in ten years. In 1950 there were no less than 196,000 eight people for a year.3 What perversity of economics is it that dairy farms, which means that over my lifetime 92.5 per cent dictates that a farmer 125 of these beasts, producing of them have disappeared.1 And despite the voluntary code the best part of a million pounds’ worth of food a year, suffi- of conduct and whatever other palliative concessions may be cient to nourish 1000 people, can barely scrape a living? made, forecasters expect them to continue disappearing. Kite Hard to Shift In order to disentangle this problem it may help to start out with two primordial facts about milk. !e first is that it can be produced with considerable ease virtually anywhere — anywhere that grass grows, that is. Most people who live in the countryside only have to look out of their window to see enough raw material to supply all the milk, and they might ever need. All of this raw material is obligingly gathered, chipped and shredded, digested and transported for us on a daily basis by cattle — all we have to do to secure a days’ harvest is ten minutes’ milking. We hear a lot about foraged food these days, but we forget that our most enthusiastic and prolific forager is the cow. !e second matter is that milk is liquid, heavy, difficult to transport, and, worst of all, it doesn’t keep. In Adam Smith’s words, “of all the productions of land, milk is perhaps the most perishable. In the warm season, when it is most abun- dant, it will scarce keep 24 hours.”4 It will last a bit longer now, with the aid of refrigeration, but dairy farmers still have to shift their fresh milk quickly, or else process it into cheese or butter themselves, which requires a lot of labour. In other words production is relatively easy and distribution is difficult; this puts dairy producers in a weak bargaining position when they encounter the market. !e wider

Adrian Arbib Adrian the market, and the more urbanised and globalised the distribution network, the weaker their position. Since the The Turkana, in Kenya, have very low food miles. advent of industrialisation, farmers have seen profit margins

48 The Land 13 Winter 2012-13 on their produce decline as processors and distributors, selling nastiness of his own kitchen.” 5 Of course, his wife, who carried goods over an ever widening radius, extract an increasing out most of the dairy processing in what she no doubt regarded proportion of the retail price. One response to lower margins as her own kitchen, might have thought differently. is to increase production — to counter diseconomies of As a result, before industrialisation, little fresh milk reached the distribution with economies of scale — but if the market is market beyond what was sold to neighbours. As late as 1748, a saturated this can only be achieved by successful farmers if Swedish visitor to London, Pehr Kalm, complained that “milk others go out of business. However it is not the only response, is hardly ever seen at their meals . . . except what is taken in and in fact the fortunes of dairy farming have fluctuated puddings, and in tea in the morning.”6 !e money was in but- somewhat over the centuries as distribution technologies have ter and cheese: by the 18th century counties such as Essex, changed. Suffolk and Berkshire, which are no longer associated with dairying, were supplying the burgeoning London market with Farmhouse Kitchen to Factory Farm cheese and butter, owing to their proximity and good roads, Prior to the rise of industry and commerce, Adam Smith and in the 19th century Lancashire and Cheshire found a ready explains “the business of the dairy, like the feeding of hogs market in Manchester and the textile towns. Most traditional and poultry, is originally carried on as a save-all” by which he British are hard, and British butter is salted, because means a by-product of the core business of producing grain. both were devised for transport to a concentrated urban mar- “!e cattle necessarily kept on the farm [to manure the fields], ket, whereas a country such as France, with a more evenly dis- produce more milk than either the rearing of their own young tributed and dense rural population, could develop soft cheeses or the consumption of the farmer’s family require.” !e surplus and supply unsalted butter for local consumption. French hard is made into cheese or butter, part of which “is reserved for cheeses tend to come from remote mountain areas.7 the use of his own family. !e rest goes to market.” When the However cheese takes time to manufacture, and hence is more price for these commodities is low, Smith warns, the farmer expensive to produce than , provided the milk doesn’t “will be likely to manage his dairy in a very slovenly and dirty have to travel far. As industrial towns expanded, demand in- manner, and will scarce perhaps think it is worth while to creased for cheap milk to feed a growing labour force with large have a particular room or building on purpose for it, but will families. Bringing fresh milk into the metropolis on a daily suffer the business to be carried on amidst the smoke, filth and

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1600 BNRFS>IBKQ  BNRFS>IBKQ € € >AGRPQBA  >AGRPQBA   ˆˆ 1100 DO>JP ª DO>JP ª „ˆˆ 600 ˆ’ˆ ˆ’ ˆ’€ ˆ’ ˆ’‚ ˆ’ƒ ˆ’„ 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 9000 10000 11000 12000    ( litres per cow per year )    ª HD LC CBBA MBO IFQOB LC JFIH MOLAR@BA « Low Yielding Cows Can Have Fewer Carbon Emissions Proponents of industrial farming argue dairy farms. This did indeed show “a DURXQGSHUFHQWRIFXUUHQWDYHUDJH that cows with higher yield produce slight but positive trend indicating that UK per capita carbon emissions. fewer carbon emissions. This, says Sam as the yield per cow increases, carbon 7KHÀJXUHVGRQRWWDNHDFFRXQWRI Evans of Kite Consulting, is because: footprint decreases.” (See the table carbon sequestration in the soil which, on left, in which each dot represents a “A lower-yielding cow carries a higher if anything, would tip the balance farm). However there was a stronger link maintenance cost per litre of milk in further in favour of farms with less between the carbon emissions per litre of terms of methane, whereas the higher intensive grass-fed cows.In addition, low milk and the amount of concentrate feed yielding cow spreads its methane yielding cows have more calves per litre used (see table right). maintenance cost over more litres of of milk, which diminishes the need for maintaining carbon-costly dams in the milk.” Moreover, as can be seen from the table suckler beef industry. RQWKHOHIWÀYHRXWRIWKHVL[IDUPVZLWK Kite Consulting (who want to see the lowest carbon emissions of all had Unfortunately, none of these less the average yield of cows rise from low yields under 6000 litres, and two had intensive farms is featured amongst the 7000 litres to 8000 by 2020) recently \LHOGVXQGHUOLWUHV7KHIDUPZLWK ÀYHFDVHVWXGLHVSXEOLVKHGLQWKHUHSRUW FRPELQHGZLWKWZRRWKHUÀUPV the very lowest carbon footprint, 832 even though their performance seems Advance Sourcing and CMS UK Services, grams CO equivalent per litre (whose to suggest that less intensive grass-fed to form E-CO2 whose aim is to help the 2 position is marked with an O in the dairy operations can reduce emissions dairy industry reduce energy use and tables above) had particularly low use just as effectively as high-yielding carbon emissions. of concentrates and nitrogen fertilizers. operations, if not more so. In February 2012, E-CO2 published the Someone consuming a pint of their milk Greenhouse Gas Emissions on British Dairy ÀUVW\HDU·VUHVXOWVRIDVXUYH\RI per day is emitting 172 kg a year or Farms, DairyCo, Feb 2012

49 The Land 13 Winter 2012-13 , painting by Malcolm Root GRA The Milk Collection

basis was impractical and expensive, so the answer was to bring formed into pastoral parishes when rail transport arrived . the cows in instead. By the beginning of the 19th century, huge . . Only the dairying areas with less easy access to railway cow-houses had become established at Paddington, Hackney, transport, such as parts of Lancashire and the Lake District, Islington and other suburbs — arguably the first factory farms Dorset, Devon and Cornwall continued to make farmhouse 9 in Britain, if not in the world. According to the Middlesex cheese and butter.” County Surveyor, John Middleton, writing in 1798, cows in !is was good news for farmers but possibly not so good for these establishments were fed on a high percentage of easily landless rural labourers who couldn’t afford their own cow. transported grains “even in summer and when the grass is in Richard Jeffries, in 1898 observed: the greatest plenty.” !e farmers sold their milk, still in the ud- der, to retail dealers, who had to supply their own . “!e poor mother has trials. !ough in the midst of a coun- try teeming with milk, it is often with the utmost difficulty “!e milk is always given in its genuine state to the retail that she can obtain any for her babe, if Nature shall have dealers; and as it is sold to them at the rate of twopence and rendered her dependent upon artificial supply. !is has be- one-eighth of a penny per quart, and is retailed by them at come especially the case of late years, now that so much milk halfpenny per quart the profit is surely so large as is sent to London, instead of being retained in the dairy for ought to prevent even the smallest adulteration.” the manufacture of butter and cheese . . . No one cares to retail a pennyworth of milk. It is only by favour, through the Unfortunately the profit margin, 39 per cent of the retail price, interest taken by some farmer’s wife, that it can be got.” 10 was not sufficient to stop retailers from adulterating the milk with water from a pump conveniently provided for that pur- In the 1920s and 30s, even remote farms were brought within pose. In one cow-house in Surrey there was “a pump of this the radius of the metropolis as their milk could be transported kind which goes by the name of the famous black cow (from to railway stations by lorry. Consumption continued to rise as the circumstances of its being painted black), and is said to milk was promoted as a necessity for the health of poor chil- yield more than all the rest put together.”8 dren and a fashionable beverage in soda fountains and milk bars. By 1930, milk represented one quarter of all agricultural !e Liquid Milk Boom production. However these factory farms were not destined to last forever, !e corollary of the milk boom was that production of cheese and after the middle of the 19th century the pendulum began and butter remained stagnant. Farmhouse cheeses became a to swing back towards rural production. !e construction of thing of the past as dairy farms found it more profitable to send railways, and subsequently the invention of refrigeration made churns off to the milk train. In the 1870s foreign competitors, it feasible for milk produced on a farm in the West Country notably from Denmark, invaded the English market for butter, to be delivered to London within a matter of hours. !is was margarine, and cheese and by 1897 it was said that half of the era of the churn and the milk train, the golden age for all English consumption was supplied from abroad. Why were liquid milk producers at a time when arable agriculture was Denmark and the Netherlands so successful at penetrating depressed: British markets for dairy produce (and for bacon which is in part a by-product of the dairy industry)? French historians “Dairying for the sale of liquid milk expanded in step with M Mazoyer and L Roudart suggest that it was because their the opening up of more branch railway lines; indeed some small family farms could supply the additional labour required arable parishes west of Salisbury Plain were wholly trans- for such products at no added expense, whereas British farms

50 The Land 13 Winter 2012-13 towards the end of the 19th century were large, cumbersome, trading under the brand name Dairy Crest, which helped and had to pay for any increase in labour in wages.11 By to buttress the MMB’s role in regulating prices. !e MMB the 1920s, when some of these farms were broken up and had a stabilising influence and milk production continued redistributed to small farmers as a result of Liberal party tax to flourish. In 1938 Viscount Astor and Seebohm Rowntree reform, Danish and Dutch dairy importers were already well proclaimed milk to be “the most important product of British established, and UK farmers found it safer and easier to stick to agriculture . . . far more truly the cornerstone of our agriculture liquid milk, which was immune from foreign competition. than wheat.”17 However a boom in liquid milk production doesn’t guarantee !at was largely because the wheat, an eminently transportable high prices, particularly in a slump; and the weak state of the commodity, was arriving from across the Atlantic. A year later, British butter and cheese industry meant that there was not when the second world war started, grain supplies from North much of a sink to absorb surplus milk. Farmers found them- America became restricted, but milk remained the priority. !e selves increasingly squeezed by distributors. Kropotkin in 1898 MMB was taken over by the Ministry of Food. Feed grain was protested that Cheshire farmers only received a penny-halfpen- reserved for dairy production which was the most efficient way ny to twopence for a quart of milk, which retailed in the city of using it. Pigs could be fed on waste. for fivepence if pure, or fourpence if adulterated. Middlemen were now creaming off 60 to 70 per cent of the value, as against Market Chaos 39 per cent a century earlier. !ey still are today.12 Favourable conditions for liquid milk production continued After World War I, discontented farmers began mounting for some time after the second world war. It was normal to protests and strikes, culminating in 1932 in an angry meeting make a living from as little as 15 cows — one retired Devon in Devizes, where 1500 farmers called for a nationwide boy- farmer assured me that his family, with just five cows, had cott of country milk depots.13 !e National Farmers Union’s managed to make a living, pay rent, and save enough money milk committee, in defiance of NFU leadership, voted for the to buy the land. urgent establishment of a milk marketing scheme, and a year later the Milk Marketing Board was formed. Yorkshire farmer But the shadows of mechanisation and concentration were al- Anthony Bradley recalls ready beginning to loom. !e number of dairy farms peaked in 1950 and declined by 23 per cent over the next decade, “In the 1930s our grandad could remember putting milk tumbling into a precipitous dive which has yet to bottom out. and butter on the train and sending it to Bradford or Leeds. Dairy farmers were squeezed by two primary forces. One was But some days it was sent back, without payment, and the family pig had a large meal. !is abuse of market power, the rapid increase in the performance of cows which saw the made worse by dealing with a perishable product, was one average yield of a British dairy cow increase by around 700 of the reasons the board was established. It took the uncer- litres every decade. Farms were producing more milk from the tainty out of the market and allowed farmers to plan. !is same number of cows, but the market wasn’t growing. 18 !ere was vital, as a cow cannot be switched off when your milk was a widening gap in terms of performance between the bulk buyer changes their mind. !e MMB pooled all the milk of dairy farmers and the top 10 percent, whose high yields ena- 14 and then marketed it together.” bled them to withstand low prices and absorb other holdings. Ann Williams, writing in !e Countryman in 1978, observed: !e other force was the prevailing neo-liberal climate which “Not until the MMB was formed , and distribution ration- undermined protection for producers and favoured the merger alised, did milk production become possible for almost all and eventual dominance of large scale processors and retailers. cow-keepers . . . Many farmers on marginal land signed Its advance can be traced through a series of landmark dates: a contract. In Wales, the craggy Welsh Black cows, hardy beasts which can give a very fair yield when they put their t"CPMJUJPOPG3FUBJM1SJDF.BJOUFOBODF !is (togeth- minds to it , were hauled up to the byre twice a day and er with the Restrictive Trades Practices Act 1956) prevented milked by hand to give hundreds of smallholdings a new manufacturers from dictating minimum resale prices for their 15 lease of life.” products. !is gave supermarkets free rein to undercut inde- Because the MMB had a monopoly of all milk produced, it pendent retailers, and a better bargaining position with manu- could maintain the price differential between high value liquid facturers.19 In particular it allowed supermarkets to use “loss milk and lower value surplus milk that needed to be processed, leaders” to lure customers into their stores. Milk is the ideal and then pool the difference between all the producers.16 In loss leader, since most people buy it, and being perishable, they a free market, particularly one dominated by large corporate have to buy it frequently. Undermining rounds processors, a surplus of milk destined for low value processing was therefore key to the supermarket’s strategy. inevitably imposes a disproportionate downward pressure on tǰF6,FOUFSTUIF&6 !e Milk Marketing Board’s the price of all milk. It is precisely for this reason — a collapse pricing structure conflicted with EU regulations and in 1982 in the price of the derived from skim milk — that the the MMB was successfully sued by both the EU Commission price collapsed in summer 2012. and the Irish export organisation An Bord Bainne. Much of !e MMB showed it had muscle in 1934 when Nestlé reneged Dairy Crest had to be sold off, and milk buyers were given on a contract with their producers in Cumbria. !e MMB increased powers to control the MMB’s prices.20 responded immediately with the establishment of a new t  ǰF .JML .BSLFUJOH #PBSE BCPMJTIFE DIVSO processing unit at Aspatria, near Wigton. !e was collection, making collection by tanker from a refrigerated the first of a number of MMB-owned processors, eventually bulk tank obligatory. Although the MMB offered to provide

51 The Land 13 Winter 2012-13

D D Robert Wiseman H Head O!ce D Depots . D . P Milk "elds by density D .. .P Processing . D D D D . H Head O!ce D Distribution depots D P D D . P H P .Milk procurement centre P . P M Milk "elds by density .. D . D ...... P . Processing Dairies . . D D . D Distribution depots D P D . H .Milk procurement centre PP M .D.. D ... . . D D D . .PP. M. Milk LogisticsD . .D Robert Wiseman, who began with a horse drawn delivery service in East Kilbride, D D .P D SLFWXUHGDERYHKDYHJURZQWREHWKH8.·VELJJHVWOLTXLGPLONVXSSOLHUVXSSO\LQJ D P PP. 7HVFR6DLQVEXU\WKH&RRSDQG1HWWR7KH\RZQVL[SURFHVVLQJXQLWVDQG . .. . M. distribution depots across the country. Their milk is transported from the farm to . . D a processing unit, then to a distribution depot, then to the supemarket and then .D D D P. to the consumer, clocking up an impressive number of food miles. D .P D . P . D . :LWKRWKHUSURFHVVRUVRSHUDWLQJRQDVLPLODUEDVLVWKH8.·VURDGVDUHFRQVWDQWO\ .. . . . traversed by lorries carrying milk in opposite diections. An indication of the level . D of cross haulage can be gained from the fact that Wales. where Wiseman has D D P. QRGHSRWVH[SRUWVKDOIRILWVHQWLUHPLONSURGXFWLRQWR(QJODQGIRUSURFHVVLQJ . and then more than a quarter of this, nearly 200 million litres, is trucked back . D . to Wales. Meanwhile another 130 million litres is imported from England to be . . processed in Wales.38 mobile tanks on wheels for small producers , these required an Since then the British milk market has consisted of a chaotic electricity supply. !e disappearance of churn collection was struggle for dominance between three main processors (Arla, the nail in the coffin for many of the remaining smallholders, Wiseman and Dairy Crest), half a dozen supermarkets and a particularly those still milking by hand.21 bevy of smaller companies and farmers’ co-operatives. Prices t  ǰF JOUSPEVDUJPO PG NJML RVPUBT !ese were sup- are volatile, but average out at “just below what they ought to posed to restrict supply and therefore help to maintain prices. be”.23 !e processors blame the supermarkets for low prices and However, because of its historic reliance on imported cheese the supermarkets blame the processors, and everyone blames and butter, the UK was only allocated the quota equivalent of the “global market”, in much the same way that someone with around 80 per cent of its consumption. Increased yields could a leaky roof blames the weather. Market forces reign to the not therefore be translated into increased production, even point that, if you hope to be running one of the 8600 dairy though there was a potential home market. Quotas also added farms that are expected to remain in 2020, you will need to be to the expense of starting up a dairy business, as they had to be a businessman, not a farmer. bought from an outgoing producer. tǰF.JML.BSLFUJOH#PBSEXBTEJTCBOEFE, because it !e Smallholder’s Cow was unable to operate in the EU environment and because its As this pageant of technological innovation and market con- monopoly powers conflicted with the government’s free mar- centration rolls across the stage, we may still occasionally ket ideology. On its demise, 65 per cent of farms, particularly glimpse the silhouette of the smallholder’s cow in the wings. smaller farms, joined the co-operative Milk Marque, which as- Small, thrifty, hardy and generous, she was once universal, but sumed some of the MMB’s role, largely because it appeared to now, in Britain, barely survives. Little is written about her but offer more security. However independent milk buyers could she momentarily rears her head from time to time in the his- offer higher prices because they could cherry-pick milk for tory books. What do we know about her? more liquid milk and other lucrative end uses, offer premi- Her yield is low. It was, by modern standards, derisory, a mere ums to large producers, and employ other selective tactics, in 24 much the same way that private delivery firms currently un- 1300 litres a year in the early 18th century. On the other dercut Royal Mail. A study carried out at the time showed that hand she was undemanding, and required little in mainte- larger producers, on average, received higher prices. Farmers nance beyond what was easily available. She was grazed on the began to desert Milk Marque because of its lower prices, and commons, on fallows, and on the crop residues after harvest, between 1994 and 1998 its share of the market declined from and received little hay in winter, mostly straw, which was a by- 60 per cent to 49 per cent. After 1996 milk prices crashed and product of the primary agricultural commodity, grain. A yield remained below 20 pence a litre until 2007.22 of 1300 litres may be low, but it is nonetheless a litre a day per person for a family of four — more than a third of their entire t  $PMMBQTF PG .JML .BSRVF Despite the fact that it nutritional requirements. If the family owned a second cow was losing ground, Milk Marque was hauled up before the then there would be a surplus to sell, quite a valuable surplus; Monopolies and Mergers Commission in 2000 and broken up. and since it would be sold to a neighbour with a minimum 52 The Land 13 Winter 2012-13 of transport, processing, bottle washing and health and safety eration, transport to a dairy, testing, bottling, transport to a regulations, the costs would be negligible and the family would distribution depot, then to a retailer, consumer purchase and receive something close to the full retail price. packaging disposal — all pointless expenditure of labour and Not much attention is paid to smallholders’ cows but obser- fuel when the raw material for the stuff grows all around you. vations on their value do crop up regularly. J M Neeson, in Economies of distribution sometimes triumph over economies her analysis of 18th century commoners, calculates that “even of scale. the most conservative estimate of a gallon a milk a day in sea- But while the smallholder’s cow has almost disappeared in Brit- son would bring in the equivalent of half a labourer’s annual ain, she remains the main provider of milk in many parts of the wage.25 William Cobbett addressed the matter in 1822: world. She has flourished in former socialist countries, despite “And what produce is that of a cow! Suppose only an aver- their centralised ideology. Lynne Viola has written a fascinating age of five quarts of milk a day (5.6 litres). If it be made into study of the bab’i bunty riots against collectivisation, carried butter, it will be equal every week to two days of the man’s out by women because they were less likely to get carted off wages, besides the value of the skim milk; and this can hard- to Siberia than the menfolk.27 !ese protests often revolved ly be of less value than another day’s wages. What a thing around the collectivisation of cows which were the economic 26 then, is this cow, if she earns half as much as a man!” mainstay for many peasant women and a main source of nour- !e same proportion applies today in !ird World countries ishment for their children. “My wife does not want to socialise — indeed in this issue of !e Land, Michael Levien notes our cow so I cannot do this” one peasant said, explaining to a that, in India, working as a security guard or driver “yields less party activist why he would not join the collective farm. Viola income than two milking water buffalo, which most people continues: had to sell after enclosure of their land.” It almost applies to “In later years, Stalin even admitted how important an issue modern conditions in the UK, since milk yields have increased the loss of a cow had been in provoking women’s opposition in tandem with income. A modern low yielding organic cow to the collective farm when he said: ‘In the not too distant produces milk with a retail value of about £4000 when delivered past, Soviet power had a little misunderstanding with the — about a third of a minimum wage or 1.66 days. collective farm women. !e issue was cows.’” Viola goes on to assess the effectiveness of this ’s re- !e economy of a smallholder’s cow is reliant on the fact volt: that there is a ready market for milk right next door, namely neighbours who don’t keep a cow. !ey pay a price that is re- “!e Party admitted that the ‘retreat’ of 1930 came about munerative because their alternative is to buy milk through as a response to peasant unrest, and Stalin even made a note a more tortuous distribution network which involves refrig- of the opposition of peasant women to the attempt to so-

1SJWBUF$PXTJO$PNNVOBM)FSET"0ODF8JEFTQSFBE4ZTUFN The Cemeskee (literally “Old Believers”) reports, this system seems to have ÀIW\SHUFHQWFXWVRPHZKDWOHVVWKDQ are a dissident sect of the Russian survived more successfully in the former that taken by UK processors and retailers. 2UWKRGR[&KXUFKVRPHRIZKRPVHWWOHG socialist bloc than in capitalist nations. The cows also bring to each household its in Siberia in the 17th century. During the share of manure which is used to create Soviet period, while much of the land In Ynegetai, cows are owned individually, hotbeds to bring plants on in time for around them was collectivised, they each household having on average at least the late growing season, and to fertilise continued to pursue their traditional two milk cows, plus a calf and a yearling. the main potato crop, a well adapted agricultural systems on their hozyastva, The cows are milked at home, but in the variety that produces tubers that are or personal homesteads. summer months are collected by paid herdsmen who take them out to the typically eight inches long and 6 inches in Their system of dairying, as pictured common pasture in the morning and back diameter. in the evening. There are three herders above in the village of Ynegetai, was once ,QIRUQDWLRQ IURP (IÀH (OIHU Agricultural Sys- widespread throughout Europe, and even who work two days on, one day off, and tems in an Old Believers Village in Siberia, Maine imported to the east of the United States ZKRFKDUJHUXEOHVSHUFRZSHUPRQWK Organic Farmer and Gardener, Fall 2004, www. — and in Cheddar, Somerset, as described $Q\VXUSOXVPLONLVVROGIRUÀYHUXEOHVD mofga.org in some detail by Daniel Defoe (see litre (2003 prices) to middlemen who sell The Land 7 p 17). Judging from hearsay it in nearby towns for 10 rubles a litre — a

53 The Land 13 Winter 2012-13 cialise domestic livestock when, in 1933, he promised a cow Model Villages for every collective farm household. !is was clearly not a retreat from collectivisation, but it was a retreat — and a Ann Williams, in her 1978 article lamenting the demise of the retreat that proved permanent . . . !e state was forced to milk churn wrote: settle for a programme minimum, in which the peasantry was allowed to maintain a private plot, domestic livestock “!e real loser is the man who cannot conform and buy a and limited direct access to the market.” tank. His farm may be too inaccessible or his gallonage too small to justify one. !ere are a few handmilkers left, pro- ducing milk on a simple system which is so far behind the Stalin’s “retreat” has had more long term effect than his times that it might actually pay . . . Ecologically speaking, collectivisation, since it is well known that Russia today the small man wins. He causes no pollution and creates no produces a phenomenal amount of its food from smallholdings. butter mountain. His cows are happy in a small herd where !e US Department of Agriculture reports that in 2011, 49.7 they know their position in the pecking order; they usually percent of milk in Russia was produced by private households. live long, stress-free lives. Yet this type of producer is almost In the Ukraine the figure rose from 26 per cent in 1990 to 81 extinct. Where he still exists, he is doomed.” per cent in 2006. In 1990, large dairy farms in the Ukraine had Yet she ended on a more optimistic note: higher yielding cows than household producers, but by 2006 the position had reversed.28 “Ironically, just as the traditional farming ways disappear, a new generation arrives that wants to revive them. To many Much the same pattern seems to have been prevalent in Poland, of us the ‘backyard farming’ development is somehow heart- ening. !e new people are trying to revive the old idea of prior to its entry into the EU in 2004. In that year, when the self-sufficiency and small country communities, they want UK had an average herd size of nearly 90 cows, the average to keep a house cow, to make butter and cheese . . . Per- sized herd in Poland was just 3.2. !e prevalent view of EU haps they and the remnants of the small farmers will find economists is that such tiny herds must be inefficient, but they some common ground and support each other; I hope they aren’t any bar to productivity, since in 2004 Poland was the will.”34 fourth largest milk producer in Europe, and was providing one !e “backyard farmers” are still arriving. !ey create market and a half times as much milk for each of its citizens as Britain, gardens, orchards and nurseries; they keep pigs and sheep and — and probably distributing it more efficiently to those of its beef cattle and poultry; they coppice woodlands and operate inhabitants that lived in the countryside.29 mobile sawmills. But for some reason very few of them keep It is in India, however, that the smallholder cow (or buffalo) dairy cows, even though dairying is unquestionably the most is excelling itself, since it is in large part responsible for India’s productive use of the pasture that most of these incomers have “White Revolution” which has propelled it to number one glo- acquired. Try looking for a cow or heifer in the small ads of the bal milk producer, and has significantly improved the diets of Devon Association of Smallholders’ excellent newsletter and many of its poorest inhabitants. Milk production has doubled you will find pigs, sheep, poultry, beef cows, machinery, hay since 1994, outpacing population growth so that the amount and so on, but you will be lucky if you find a dairy animal. of milk available per person has increased by 50 per cent over !e reason for this is that there are a number of obstacles that the same period to 281ml (half a pint) per day.30 might deter anyone from setting up a small scale dairy enter- prise. You have to identify a market for your produce, locate Most of this milk is produced by what is endearingly known land, find somewhere to live close by, build or repair infrastruc- in India as “the unorganised sector”. According to the FAO: ture, acquire a large amount of stainless steel utensils (many of “!e unorganised sector accounts for more than 50 per cent which can now only be found in India), meet (or duck) strin- of total production . . . !e total number of households in gent health and safety standards, be prepared to attend to your production is more than 67 million; out of this 11 million can cows at least once and often twice a day, have relief milkers on be characterised as farmers, with an average of two to three hand for when you can’t, and learn what is arguably the most animals.” Milk is marketed, again mostly by the unorganised complex and challenging of all agricultural pursuits. sector, or else by over 110,000 farmers’ co-operatives delivering to processors in 176 districts. !e dairy sector in India employs !e main exception to this lack of interest is where alterna- 5.5 per cent of the entire workforce (compared to less than 0.3 tive communities acquired large run down country houses or per cent in the UK), of whom 58 per cent are women and 69 derelict dairy farms, in the days when these could be picked per cent from disadvantaged groups.31 up cheaply. Not only were these properties almost invariably equipped with dairying facilities — hay barn, byre, milking Whereas the green revolution in India has been criticised for parlour, dairy, pig sty — but also, as long as the community forcing peasants out of agriculture, the white revolution has thrived, there would be an on site market for the milk, cheese been widely applauded for providing livelihoods to the land- and butter. Country houses, hierarchical though they may have poor, through the ability of cows to forage crop residues and been in their heyday, were sustainable communities providing other freely available biomass. !ere is a danger that this more or less everything on site for a fair number of people. progress may be undermined by the supermarket chains (in- Old Hall, in Suffolk, Monkton Wyld and Pilsdon in Dorset, cluding Tesco and Carrefour) now seeking to penetrate the In- still run small scale dairies. Glaneirw in Wales used to have dian retail market.32 On the other hand, the Government’s Na- one, but no longer. Radford Mill in Somerset had a success- tional Dairy Development Board states explicitly that it aims ful operation selling yoghurt at its shop in Bristol, but that to “safeguard the interests of small producers” and “enhance collapsed for personal reasons. Other communities have never the income of small rural dairy farmers”.33 bothered. Redfield’s dairies are derelict, and Braziers Park’s re-

54 The Land 13 Winter 2012-13 main unused. Sadly, there are quite a few examples of rural communities with good dairy land and steadings languishing, while the residents buy in milk, cheese and butter. In the greater scheme of things, these self-sufficient commu- nities are an irrelevance as they are few and far between and cannot hope to meet the growing demand for local sustainably produced milk. On the other hand they are a model of efficien- cy in respect of their distribution costs which are close to zero. !e transport of their milk is measured in food yards, not food miles. Not everyone wants to live in an intentional community, of course, but in practice they are little different from concen- trated villages. If everybody in a village could be persuaded to consume the milk made from the grass they can see out of their window, then the distribution problem which confronts many small-scale dairy producers would fade into the background. !e village could be served by a tiny milk round twice a week, using stainless steel containers paid for by the consumer, or, where the farmyard is conveniently sited, a slot machine linked to the bulk tank, such as I have seen in Austria. North Aston Dairy, rear view. /PSUI"TUPO%BJSZ One of the trickiest aspects of the job is maintaining a constant In theory, with middlemen taking the lion’s share of the pro- supply of milk throughout the year. !is requires year round ceeds, even when they sell milk cheaper than bottled water, a calving, and things get awkward if, for example, a cow doesn’t small farmer who sells milk directly ought to be able to make come into calf. “It would be a lot easier if there were a small lo- a living from a micro-dairy of no more than about six cows — cal cheese-maker where we could send surplus milk — a sort of provided he can keep costs down by selling locally. milk sink.” Matt would also be keen to see several other similar enterprises start up in the area. His milk round covers just a It can, and has been done. Probably the best example is North little bubble on the map of Oxfordshire, and the potential mar- Aston Dairy, 12 miles from Oxford, where Matt Dale runs a ket in Oxford City is far larger than he can meet. “!ere would herd of organic Ayrshire cows, with the help of Josh Healy, and be no need to compete for customers and many opportunities an occasional relief milker. !ey produce around 1000 litres to co-operate, for example sharing machinery, and a bull, or of fresh milk per week which is sold, in returnable litre glass exchanging surplus milk.” bottles, through a milk round of about 200 customers over a three mile radius, a neighbouring vegetable box scheme, and a !e ten milking cows provide an income for one full time worker few retail outlets in Oxford. Milk is processed and distributed and another working part-time. It is not a princely income twice a week. !e cost of delivered is £1.10 a litre, but it is adequate, and it is helped by there being affordable which is cheaper than some other organic milk rounds, and no accommodation on the farm. Matt and Josh’s time is divided more expensive than organic milk in a corner shop. “Most of fairly equally between the three main tasks: producing the milk, my customers buy my milk because it is local,” says Matt “and processing it, and distributing it. However the financial costs many are not particular about whether it is organic, so I don’t of running the farm and milking, including rent, materials and want to charge too much of a premium for that.” initial cost of the cows is disproportionate — Matt reckons as much as 60 pence per litre (55 per cent of the price). !is is the Matt rents 40 acres of land and buildings from a sympathetic reverse of the mainstream milk industry where 60 per cent or local landowner at reasonable agricultural rate. He started out more of the price per litre goes to the processors and retailers. with just three cows, but soon attracted so much custom that Economies of distribution have to make up for diseconomies by the end of the year he had to buy three more. To raise capi- of scale.35 tal to buy them he issued “cow bonds” to local investors who receive interest on their loan. Currently he has about ten cows in milk, averaging a little over 3 gallons a day, while another Vending Machines 6 to 8 are either dried up or fostering the calves born in the North Aston Dairy at present cannot quite compete in price herd. !e cows are fed on grass, silage and some concentrates, with delivered organic milk from supermarkets. !is is partly though Matt is thinking about making hay, as silage adds a because dairy farmers are not paid adequately, partly because taste to the milk. !ey are kept inside in winter months on many farmers do not have to pay rent, partly because milk is deep litter, which is forked out by hand in Spring. often sold as a loss leader, and partly because certain costs, such His initial investment was £25,000, which he used mainly to as packaging waste disposal, are not paid for by the supermar- equip the milking parlour and dairy. He uses a four-cow walk- kets. What’s more, you have to buy two litres at a time to get through milking machine, a 1970s pasteurising machine and a the cheap price; and you have to buy £40 worth of their other vintage 1950s bottle washing machine. “You’d have a job find- stuff to benefit from home delivery. ing anything like this in Britain now” he said, “it’s all been Nonetheless it would be nice to beat Tesco and Asda at their scrapped. You’d probably have to get it from India.” own game, and trim costs so that local milk is as cheap, or even

55 The Land 13 Winter 2012-13 cheaper than theirs. If this can be done at all, it will probably be through the use of the milk vending machines which are becoming increasingly popular in many European countries. !ese slot machines, sited in car parks, garages, outside shops or in any convenient public space, dispense fresh cold milk to customers who are encouraged to bring their own container (though bottles can be provided for anyone who forgets). !e farmer brings the milk in a tank every day and removes yes- terdays’ tank, which is taken back to the farm and washed. !ey range in capacity from 120 litres up to 560 litres, and are manufactured by a number of firms including Prometea (Italy) Novilait (France), Risto (Germany) and Milkmat (Poland). !ese dispensers are probably the least labour-intensive way for small farmers to get milk out to the public and especially into A milk vending machine in a French car park. larger towns— they eliminate the laborious business of filling duced one into a pub in a posh Cotswold village, selling their and washing bottles, of doorstep delivery, and of billing. Un- organic Guernsey milk for £2 a litre — probably not the best fortunately they are expensive, largely because of the hygiene way to introduce the British public to the concept.37 requirements, but also because they are often the size of a small chalet. !e Novilait 150 litre model costs €30,000, currently Bridging the Gulf about £24,000, or can be rented for €550 a month. It would None of these solutions are particularly easy, or devoid of costs. take the milk from one pretty good cow to pay the rent on the But unless we are prepared to see all our family farms disappear, machine, so you would probably need a dozen cows in milk and are happy to drink milk from US style cow factories of to make it worth investing in one — or a grant. Nonetheless, 1000 animals or more, we will have to make them work. We milk is usually sold at 1.10 a litre for organic, and as low are way behind most European countries, where small-scale as 80 centimes for non-organic, which is barely more than the dairy production has always been an option for new entrants supermarket price. With a mass-produced, no-frills machine, it into farming. British farms have been so large for so long that could probably be brought down to parity. there is a huge gulf between mainstream farmers and the “back- Despite being found right across Europe, milk vending ma- to-the-landers”. Farmers have lost the ability to think small, chines are still almost unheard of in the UK, and the first two while most newcomers veer away from something as daunting attempts to introduce them have been silly, and possibly coun- as milk production and tend to head for tried and tested niche terproductive. In September a Sussex farmer installed one, dis- products such as salad bags or apple juice. pensing raw milk, in Selfridges of all places, utterly failing to grasp that local distribution and reduced use of packaging are !is is unfortunate because, with so many dairy farmers leav- two of the main advantages of these machines. Who is going to ing the business in the last 30 years, there is an immense bank bring their milk jug along to Oxford Street? Inevitably Health of knowledge going to waste. If retired dairy farmers were to and Safety officers rocked up and got the machine removed af- team up with young, green (in both metaphorical senses of ter a few months, probably to Selfridge’s relief.36 A few months the word) entrants into agriculture, then a viable alternative to later Adam and Caroline Fleming, of Neils Yard Dairy, intro- factory-produced milk would emerge out of the ruins of our family farms. 8. John Middleton,View of the Agricul- LSE Department of Economic History, 29 EV Jesse, The Dairy Industry of Po- REFERENCES ture of Middlesex, 1798, and Peter Foot, Working Paper 39/98, 1998, reprints.lse. land, Dairy Updates World Dairy Industries 1.Tim Brigstocke, “The Future Strategy General View of the Agriculture of Middle- ac.uk/22406/ No 105, Babcock Institute, University of for Dairy Farming in the UK”, Journal of sex, 1794, in William Marshall, Review and 20. Empson, op cit 13. Wisconsin, 2005. the Royal Agricultural Society of England Abstract of the County Reports to the Board 21 Williams, op cit 15. 30. National Dairy Development Board, Vol 165 2004.) of Agriculture, Vol 5, (1818) Augustus Kel- 22 JR Franks, Recent Changes in Milk http://www.nddb.org/English/statistics/ 2 Kite Consulting , World Class Dairying ly, NY 1968. Marketing in the UK: the Farmers’ Perspec- Pages/Statistics.aspx — A Vision for 2020, www.kiteconsulting.com 9. Joan Thirsk, Alternative Agriculture: A tive, 13th International Farm Management 31. M I Barbaruah and A K Joseph, In- 3 USDA National Nutrient Database, History, Oxford, 1997, p 168. Conference, International Farm Manage- dia: Dairy Giant Walking Barefoot, FAO, NHS Choice www.nhs.uk, My Fitness Pal 10. Richard Jeffries, The Toilers of the ment Association, 2002, www.ifmaonline.org )$2Livestock in the Balance, , State ZZZP\ÀWQHVVSDOFRP &KDQQHO ,VODQG Field, Longman Green and co, 1898, p113. 23. Williams op cit 15. of Food and Agriculture Report, 2009. Milk with 5% fat contains 800 kcals, and 11. Marcel Mazoyer and Laurence Rou- 24 J M Neeson, Commoners: Common 32 Marita Wiggerthale, To Checkout 40 gms protein per litre. 9.6 litres per day dart, A History of World Agriculture, Earth- Right, Enclosure and Social Change in Eng- Please!  2[IDP *HUPDQ\ VXP- = 7680 kcals = 3.4 x daily requirement of scan, 2006, pp 329 and 370. land 1700-1820, Cambridge , 1993, p 311. mary at http://www.fairer-agrarhandel.de/  NFDOV DQG  JPV SURWHLQ   [ 12. Peter Kropotkin, Fields Factories William Ellis, The Practical Farmer or the mediapool/16/163463/data/2009/to_check- daily requirement of 51gms. Whole milk and Workshops, Nelson, 1912, p 139. Hertfordshire Husbandman, 1738, cited in out_please.pdf 3.75% fat contains 640 kcal and 32.8g pro- 13.John Empson, “The History of the Trow Smith, op cit 6. 33. National Dairy Development Board, WHLQOLWUHVSHUGD\ NFDOV [ Milk Marketing Board, 1933-1994: British 25. Neeson, ibid. Village Milk Procurement Systems, www. GDLO\UHTXLUHPHQWNFDOVDQGJSURWHLQ  Farmers’ Greatest Commercial Enterprise”, 26 William Cobbett, Cottage Economy, nddb.org/English/Services/CS/Pages/Vil- 17 x daily protein requirement. International Journal of Dairy Technology, 1822, para 134. lage-Milk-Procurement-Systems-NDP.aspx) 4 Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 51(3) August 1998, pp 77-85. 27. Llyne Viola, “Bab’i Bunty and Peasant 34. Williams, op cit 15. 1776, Book 1 Ch 9 “Different Effects of 14. Anthony Bradley, “The Abolition of Women’s Protest during Collectivization”, 35. Interview by SF, 8 November 2012. the Progress of Improvement upon the real the Milk Marketing Board did not Help us The Russian Review, vol 45, pp 23-42, 1986. 36. Investigation into Sussex Raw Milk Price of three different Sorts of rude Pro- Dairy Farmers”, The Guardian website, 8 28. USDA GAIN: Russian Fed- Sold at Selfridges, BBC News Sussex, 22 duce: Second Sort’. January 2010. eration Dairy and Products Semi- 0DUFKZZZEEFFRXNQHZVXNHQJ- 5.Ibid. 15 Ann Williams, “Requiem for a Milk Annual 2012 www.thedairysite.com/ land-sussex-17479147 6.Lucas, (ed) Kalm’s Account of his Visit Churn”, The Countryman, Summer 1978. UHSRUWV"FDWHJRU\  LG  6WDWH 6WD- 37. Harry Wallop, “The Milk of Non- to England, 1748, London 1892, cited in 16. Empson, op cit 13. tistic Committee of Ukraine, cited in N. Human Kindness”, Daily Telegraph, 13 Robert Trow Smith, A History of British 17. Thirsk, op cit 9. Mamonova, Challenging the Dominant September 2012. Livestock Husbandry, 1700-1900, Rout- 17.Brigstocke, op cit 1. Assumptions about Peasant’s Response to 38. NFU Cymru, “The Futire of Dairy ledge and Kegan Paul, 1959. 19 Helen Mercer, The Abolition of Re- Land Grabbing, Global Land Grabbing 2 Farming in Wales, evidence to the Com- 7. Paul Kindstedt, American Farmstead sale Price Maintenance in Britain in 1964: Conference, Cornell University, Oct 2012. mons Select Committee on Welsh Affairs, Cheese, Chelsea Green 2005. a Turning Point for British Manufacturers?, 2 Nov 2012.

56 The Land 13 Winter 2012-13 Three Small-Scale Dairy Operations Bhaktivedanta Manor

By far the most impressive community dairy herd is that run by Syamasundara at Bhaktivedanta Manor, near Watford, on the four precepts of Hindu principles of cow protection: (1) cows are never killed, (2) they are milked by hand, (3) calves drink milk directly from their PRWKHUDQG  EXOOVDUHJLYHQPHDQLQJIXOZRUN

7KHKHUGFRPSULVHVDERXWFRZVEXWRQO\ about 11 of these are in milk. The rest consist RIFDOYHVKHLIHUVEXOORFNVZRUNLQJR[HQ UHWLUHGR[HQDQGUHWLUHGFRZV7KHFRZVJDYH DQDYHUDJH\LHOGRIOLWUHVD\HDUQRW including the milk given to calves. Cows are only calved once every three years on average to limit the calves born to a number consistent ZLWKWKHUHTXLUHPHQWIRUUHSODFHPHQWR[HQ and cows. “The key to a successful dairy herd” says Syamasundara, “is knowing how to keep \RXUR[HQIXOO\RFFXSLHGµ7KHR[HQFXUUHQWO\ provide all the power needed to farm 131 acres. thousands of people, residents and visitors, every week. The 7KHFDWWOHDUHH[WUHPHO\ZHOOFDUHGIRUZLWKÀYHSHRSOH milk is valued at £3 per litre, over three times as much as employed looking after the cows and the milking parlour. The delivered supermarket milk. In 2009 the herd produced 37,000 morning milking session, including herding, feed preparation litres but Syamasundara reckons they need to more than double DQGVRRQWDNHVDERXWÀYHKRXUV7KHPLONLVSDVWHXULVHGDQG SURGXFWLRQWRPHHWDOOWKHWHPSOH·VQHHGV DOORILWLVFRQVXPHGRQVLWHDWWKH0DQRU·VWHPSOHZKLFKIHHGV .BQMF'JFME'BSN .POLUPO8ZME$PVSU

There has been a small dairy herd at Monkton Wyld Court in Dorset, ZKHUH7KH/DQGKDVLWVRIÀFHVFRQWLQXRXVO\VLQFHDWOHDVWWKHHDUO\ V H[FHSWIRUWR ³WKHKHUGUHFRUGERRNGDWHVEDFN Nick Snelgar has featured more than once in the Chapter WR7KHPRGHVWIDUPEXLOGLQJVDUHW\SLFDORIGDLU\VWHDGLQJV 7 News columns of The Land, owing to the battle he has that could be found in their thousands all around the country, but had securing planning permission for his micro-dairy in the are now nearly all demolished, derelict or converted, and in 2008 village of Martin in Hampshire (see p.69). The village is that was nearly the fate of these, when the community underwent already well-known for its local community food scheme, a radical restructuring. Future Farms, involving vegetables, pigs and poultry, but Nick thought that it was missing one obvious component: However the Monkton herd and farmyard has survived because dairy cows. He sold his house, bought four acres of land, WKHUHKDVDOZD\VEHHQDUHDG\PDUNHWIRUPLONÀUVWRIDOOLQ HUHFWHGEDUQVDQGDQGDPRELOHKRPHDQGJRWD  WKHDOWHUQDWLYHERDUGLQJVFKRROWKDWH[LVWHGXSXQWLODQG grant from the Prince of Wales Countryside Fund to subsequently in the educational community that replaced the buy milking and dairy equipment, including a tractor, a school. SDVWHXULVHUDFUHDPH[WUDFWRUDQGDEXONPLONWDQN+HDOVR 8QWLOWKHKHUGKDGVL[FRZVEXWODQGZDVVROGRIIWRSD\GHEWV VSHQW RIWKHJUDQWEXLOGLQJDPRELOHPLONLQJSDUORXU in the 1990s and there are currently just two cows and a heifer, NQRZQDVDPLONLQJEDOHZKLFKFDQEHWRZHGDURXQGÀHOGV producing around 6000 litres of milk a year, hand milked. Nearly in the locality. “We can be like nomads, using whatever half the milk is sold to the community at £1.20 per litre, and the ÀHOGVFRPHXSIRUUHQWµ rest is made into hard cheese and butter which is also sold to the FRPPXQLW\RUHOVHDWIDUPHUV·PDUNHWVDWWKHVDPHSULFH,WLV 1LFN·VSURMHFWLVVWLOOJHWWLQJRIIWKHJURXQG+HUHFHQWO\ KRSHGWRH[SDQGWKHKHUGWRWKUHHRUIRXUFRZVDQGPRUHODQGKDV ERXJKWKLVÀUVWWZR-HUVH\FRZVWKRXJKKHSODQVWRJRXS been rented for the purpose. Monkton are combining with similar to ten and distribute the milk through doorstep deliveries. small dairy projects nearby at Fivepenny Farm and Pilsdon Christian But his project has already attracted attention because it is community to make cheese co-operatively. so unusual.

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