Thu, 21/11/2024 - 18:18pm
Sometimes the day to day busy-ness of running the farm and the cheese dairy mean you just don't take the time to step back and see the bigger picture. As the darker nights and cold frosty mornings arrive, with the cows and calves tucked up warm in their winter housing, it felt like the right time for a look back and to share some thoughts.
The first thing we want to share is that interest in cow with calf dairy farming continues to grow. It was wonderful to welcome Cathy Palmer from How Now Dairy in Australia to our farm last month. We have lots in common, both in how we manage our cow with calf dairies and in cheesemaking. After she visited us, she then went to see another cow with calf dairy, Old Hall Farm in Norfolk.
The number of cow with calf farms listed on the Cow Calf Dairies directory continues to increase, and our fellow farmers who are passionate about keeping cows and calves together continue to do amazing things - including our friend Bryce at Mossgiel Farm who is in the middle of a crowdfunding campaign to help scale up his processing, which would make cow with calf milk more accessible to people in central Scotland.
There’s been quite a flurry of activity coming from Europe on cow-calf contact systems. In May, we had researchers visit from the Danish Innovation Centre for Organic Farming working with the project: "Better decision support in cow-calf contact systems", and in September we had a visit from a German researcher who is part of a 26 European nation study into cow-calf contact systems, who stayed for a few days to study our system. We also had a visit from an ADAS researcher into CCC systems in August who came back in October to see the calving.
We've also welcomed politicians, international students and TV crews to the farm this autumn, all of whom were interested in both the cow with calf aspect of our farm, and our approach to working with nature. A news report on German TV station ZDF, which you can view on this link, attracted both interest and words of support, and a few emails from vegan activists. We are happy to receive both, it means that our approach and our message is being noticed.
Explaining our system to the local MP
We have also attended quite a few events recently ourselves. This has included taking part in the fantastic Cultivating Wisdom Conference in Manchester, which was an event about agroecology innovation, with a strong focus on practical experiences of on-farm research. We also got some recognition for our on-farm research when we won the Net Zero Nature category of Holyrood Magazine's Climate Action Awards for for ‘Holistic Agroecology in Action’.
This year has also seen a strong focus on trying to get our cheese stocked in more outlets. To help with that we attended the Speciality & Fine Food Fair in London, which is one of the biggest trade fairs in the UK. We're making real progress on this, and we do hope more people are encountering packs of our cheese in local retailers. Selling through wholesale channels means we don't really know who is stocking our cheese, so the Stockists section of our website is now very out of date.
David speaking at a conference
Winning a Climate Action Award
At the Speciality & Fine Food Trade Fair in London
The year, as ever, was full of ups and downs, but on the whole we look back with a sense of satisfaction and a strong feeling that progress is being made. We are both well and Wilma's health continues to be stable, which we are deeply thankful for, and the cows and calves are thriving. We are grateful for everyone who has supported us and who continue to do so through buying and enjoying the products we make. Thank you to everyone who has made 2024 such a positive year.
