simple question why is john craven doing down the holstein breed?!?!

 

does he not realise that if they aren't looked after well they wont produce the "vast amounts of milk" that they are producing?!

 

made me laugh how he called the cows in the film "thin and boney" i couldnt see any " thin and boney" cows!

he obviously hasnt seen a jersey, they have more promenant bones than a holstein.....

Its the usual problem of misinformed idiots biting the hand that feeds them .

i dont even bother to watch that tripe anymore.

I,d rather sweep grain bins than listen to such tosh.

I am appaled how they are picking on one of the agricultural industrys with one of the most hardships.I would like to see him manage a 700 cow dairy heard on the pay you receve.

 

 

To be honest, i dont think he put them down completely! Yes, holsteins were viewed in a negative light, however they did explain the reason for them being 'skinny'. Not that thats right....you could say a beef cow is too fat really....theres lots people could say but at the end of the day, it falls back to ill informed people! They could have done alot better job but at the end of the day - it is TV. It wasnt a documentary and they are filming it to get the most ratings . They couldnt give a flying 'flip' what they put on...if it makes them money then its fine in there eyes! But, even though the holsteins were seen negatively, they did show other aspects of dairy - Mont Belliers (is that right?) which they showed as a dual purpose cow. I dont think Craven is the one people need to critise, its the BBC!

gregory's:

made me laugh how he called the cows in the film "thin and boney" i couldnt see any " thin and boney" cows!

 

Me neither, they all looked in good condition, but someone once said to me why do there bones stick out - refering to there hook and pins which makes them skinny looking apparently.

 The Farming Programme is no more and John Craven is a waste of space.

I think the farming programme losing its sunday 11 o'clock spot is indicative of how the BBC and people as a whole feel about farmers.

They will feel different if they suddenly find no food in Tescos!!

They seem to think it's new, sixty years ago we were trying to breed from the best milkers in the herd. Foot problems with long curled up claws, and pendulous udders were common and we did not breed from them.
AI and a selective breeding program in the 1960's helped to improve yields as well as feet and udder shape, then came the Holstein to further the milk output, and in doing so took the beef qualities away from the dairy herds.
These are working animals fed a balanced ration to produce milk, the ones we saw were in good working condition, if they are not looked after in any way they will not produce.

As to fertility, just compare the fertility of the human race, that is probably no better than that of the dairy cow that they are moaning about, its never going to be 100% no matter how you try, I think fertility is not a new problem, we have always had it, we would all like our best cows to go on for another couple of years.

Are we now to go for a foreign cross breed  to reduce yield and go for a fatter cow with more flesh on her bones, what is wrong with crossing with the good old Shorthorn breed.  

matty s:

To be honest, i dont think he put them down completely!

I agree he went some way to explain the benefits of Holsteins, but you have to worry about how much of the positive side actually sunk in for the non-farming audience. The emails and letters he read out at the beginning of the segment about their zero-grazing report a few weeks ago showed the issue had hit a nerve, but how many of those people had drawn a distinction between those systems (which account for a small % of UK dairy farms) and other dairy systems?

I watched both those programmes with my non-farming housemate, and if her reaction was anything to go by, the conclusion that viewers will have come to is that all UK milk is produced in a way which results in dairy cattle not living a particularly nice life.

What worries me is that the programme's too agriculturally dumbed-down for a farming audience, but is too technical for mainstream viewers. As such it doesn't seem to be doing anyone much good...

caroline stocks:

What worries me is that the programme's too agriculturally dumbed-down for a farming audience, but is too technical for mainstream viewers. As such it doesn't seem to be doing anyone much good...

Spot on! Explaining it will probably take a three hour documentary, to understand it will probably take alot longer! The problem is there is too much to explain - reasoning etc to include it in a segment of a 1 hour programme. Farmers know, but getting this over to the public, especially via TV is alot harder!

 

I do not want to drift too much off the topic of John Craven's programmes/presentation but should we not really be asking the question, "What is the BBC for?"

In my view public service broadcasting should be commissioning and delivering programmes which add to the knowledge base of the nation. The BBC's output should be at the top twenty per cent of the market not in the eighty percent segment. (See Pareto) The justification for taking public money can be most easily made when the BBC is involved in programmes which add value to the viewers. That value can take the form of education or the satisfaction of one of the art forms unlikely to be pursued by the popular commercial media. Forms such as opera, philosophy, the scientific disciplines and their application such as those of engineering, agiculture, chemistry et al.

Programmes of entertainment, and those of a general nature likely to apeal to mass audiences should, in my opinion, be the preserve of the commercial media. John Craven would be on the commercial media, programmes dealing with technical issues of milk production would be on the BBC.

Of course there will be borderline programmes in which case they would be shown on Channel Four which is also publicly funded.

This will not happen of course as there are just too many snouts in the mega trough of the BBCs licence money.

John Craven's problem is simple. He's well and truly past his sell by date, evidenced by his being given the graveyard slot on the new look Countryfile as way of allowing this former icon of kiddies news the opportunity to fade away gracefully. Unfortunately he seems determined to go out with a bang with some truly Daily Mailesque journalism....low on content and heavy on  emotion. It would be rather amusing  if peoples livelihoods weren't at risk.

The problem is that he is preaching to the converted, which is why his first report on zero grazing provoked such an emotional response. Countryfile's viewers are in the main comfortably off, middle class, middle englanders (not that there's anything wrong with that ) who are already prepared to pay a premium to ensure that the cows that produce the minute proportion of the nation's milk that  they buy, are cosseted in lush spring grass 12 months of the year.

There is nothing these people like more, after a taxing afternoon spent reading the papers and taking the Discovery to the car wash to be valeted by some sub-minimum wage Albanian , than a good dose of moral outrage at the atrocities being committed by greedy farmers in an attempt to make, shock horror, a profit.

The reality of the matter is that the silent majority are at best ambivalent to the plight of both the dairy cow and the dairy farmer. To them milk is a commodity. Which in fairness it is to the majority of UK producers too. It is a little churlish to expect the market to pay a premium price when A: the majority of consumers  won't  (remember what happened when we chose to 'listen to the consumer' over pig welfare?) and B: we the producers, in an attempt to produce milk as cheaply as possible create a seasonal cycle of surplus and shortage, out of line with demand, which the processors then have to balance at a cost which they either absorb, pass on to the consumer or back to the farmer.... whichever is the path of least resistance.

Theres is much that needs to be done on all sides of the industry to improve the lot of the cow and her keepers. However whipping up the chattering classes into a misinformed  foaming lather of outage is neither a constructive or responsible way for a public service broadcaster to behave and adds little of value to ths serious issue.

 C'mon BBC; If you cant afford to pension him off just yet, at least give him Newsround back so he can see out his days doing what he does best.

 

 I wouldn't really blame Craven as really he is just presenting what someone else has given him. As you will probably find that most of it is research and matterial found by someone behind the scenes as well as someone finding the "expert".

It would certainly be a lot better if it was more balanced and showed both sides equally fairly but the trouble is farmer/agricultural sector will only account for a small proportion of viewers most being welfare/animal rights/viewers from towns and cities that know very little about farming and have little to no access to it. Ultimately they are wanting to sell thier program so appealing to the largest audiance is the way they are going to do it.

The same way as the news etc still refers to H5N1 as Swine flu as it gets people attention more and so is likely to get higher ratings.

As they say history is written by the victor and the strong and thats unfortunately not us.

You are right sjk, Craven is a mouthpiece for series producer Teresa Bogan and her specially selected coterie of feature directors who have their agendas - don't forget to watch Escape to the Country and Countrywise (ITV)!

He used to be only trusted to present the childrens news! BBC never let him loose with the proper news!

He also said most bull calves are shot which this year I would say is far from true!

dougal htid:

He also said most bull calves are shot which this year I would say is far from true!

 

very true. hasnt the price bein going up??

john craven/the bbc must think that there is only holstiens in the dairy industry,what about ayrshires ( probably spelt wrong lol ) and jeresy's? farmers who keep these breeds also shoot there bull calves do they not?? and what about fertility problems with them?

 

we dont shoot our bull calves, it would be too much of a loss if we did!!