Super-dairies: Big and brash and bound to happen?
The US dairy industry is increasingly moving towards larger, zero-grazing herds leaving small-scale farms to either grow or disappear.
Within the past 10 years in the USA the proportion of farms with more than 500 cows has almost doubled from 31.3% to 59.5% of the national herd.
Less than half of the farms with under 99 cows are still in business, while farms with 100-199 cows dropped by 6.5% and 200-499 cow units are down by 4.1%.
This consolidation and the rise in large-scale operations is a trend that is set to continue, according to Gordie Jones, who designed a 32,000-cow facility in Indiana and was a consultant for the stalled Nocton dairy project in Lincolnshire.
“The industry is going to the same place the old corner gas station went, or the tiny store in the village,” Dr Jones said.
“It’s going to Wal-Mart or the even bigger super stores. Agriculture has to do that too.”
While plans to build large-scale dairies in the UK have been scuppered by campaigners concerned about their potential impact on communities as well as animal health and welfare, industry experts believe there could be a place for large operations in a diverse British dairy sector.
But Richard Davis, First Milk and DairyCo board member, said British set-ups would face different challenges from those faced by their US counterparts.
Mr Davis, who has visited US dairies with 800 to 32,000 cows, said the units he had seen had been extremely well managed.
“It works, but it has taken a long time to perfect the system,” he said.
The environment in the UK would mean adopting a different approach, both in selecting the location of a dairy and in the management techniques used, he said.
“The unit set-up and run would probably work [as] in America, but it would be the detailed stuff such as the slurry management or cropping management that would need to be changed,” he added.
“If you’ve got 40in of rain a day you’re going to struggle because of the slurry. If you’re in the east where its drier it might work better.”
RSPCA cattle welfare specialist John Avizienius said he accepted larger dairies would eventually come to the UK.
“I don’t really think harking back to the halcyon days of having a dual-purpose cow wandering the lush pastures is a model in the real world,” he said.
“Up to a point size doesn’t matter if you meet the needs of the cow.
“But, however much you say the cows are fine and it’s sometimes better for them, the consumer will be the final arbiter in the UK,” he added.
“It’s whether these big dairies are acceptable to the UK consumer that is important.”
Despite recognising that larger dairies were inevitable for the UK, Mr Avizienius said he would want British units to offer cows more space.
“Cows do loaf around, they don’t just stand all day,” he said.
“They are not just feeding and milk machines, interacting on a social level is important.”
Jason Bayley, an Asda Arla farmer who runs 400 cows on his property in south Derbyshire, agreed he would prefer to see cows given more space.
“Cows in the field lie flat out, like a dog would in the sun. But there’s no way they could do it on those large units even if they had a loafing area.
“It would be so densely populated, a cow wouldn’t have the confidence to lie down like that,” he said.
“It’s a very relaxed state for the cow and sunshine is good for their feet. It’s a break for them and a break for those caring for them, it’s a change in the routine for everyone.”
While he said he was impressed with the large US dairies he had seen, he supported a flexible system that allowed for grazing.
“I wouldn’t want to go to a totally housed system, I wouldn’t want to take away grazing completely. But I can’t see a problem housing fresh cows and high-yielding cows.”
Case Studies
Fair Oaks Dairy, Indiana
32,000 cows (Holstein)
Dairy education centre, cheese and dairy products store
• Established in 1998, the Fair Oaks Dairy is a joint operation of five local dairying families and houses 32,000 cows all-year-round fed on a mixture of hay, grain and maize silage.
The farm sprawls over 25,000 acres with 10 separate dairy sites and is unmistakable from the highway, its massive white barns set behind a vast cornfield.
On farm, the Fair Oaks Farms Adventure Centre entertains and informs visitors, with a full educational centre and a bus ride through the facility.
Despite almost 40,000 cows in the neighbourhood of Fair Oaks there is little smell and few flies with cows demonstrating high welfare and producing about 37 litres of milk a day.
Prairieland Farms,Wisconsin
800 Holstein cows
• Produces for the liquid milk market and expanded to its present size of 800 cows from a much smaller family-run operation with plans to expand even further.
Cows are housed all year round and there were some instances of bar biting noticed by welfare experts on the tour. Overall the unit was considered to be overstocked due to their imminent expansion.
Also on Prairieland Farms, as is the practice on most dairies in Wisconsin, cows were given fortnightly injections of the hormone BST to boost milk production.
Central Sands Dairy, Wisconsin
3200 cows (Jersey/Holstein mix)Anaerobic digester (powers 750 homes)
• Home to 3200 cows, the Central Sands Dairy lies in the middle of potato-growing country in central Wisconsin and was built from scratch in 2004 by Gordie Jones, designer of the Fair Oaks Dairy in Indiana.
Drawing on his previous experience on Fair Oaks, Dr Jones was able to design a dairy which in effect is the same but on a smaller scale.
Cows are a mix of Holstein and Jersey breeds with some Jersey crosses and were chosen for the high fat and protein levels in their milk, important for the production of cheese and milk fat for processing, large industries in Wisconsin.
Cows lacked rubberised matting throughout the facility and this was a concern among some visiting farmers. But the consensus of the experts on the tour agreed it was a good example of excellent management working to create a quality operation.