Intensive Dairy Farming

Debate between Stephen Phillips and Simon Hart

Tuesday 14th December 2010 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Phillips]

My hon. Friend is correct. The real point is that the price pressure that has come down from the supermarkets, whether through intermediaries or those responsible for purchasing milk production, has been so great that many farmers have been driven out of business, and those who remain in business, however efficient they are, are effectively driven to a point where the costs of production are almost equal—and sometimes greater than—the price that they are being paid for their milk.

The Government will have to grapple with that problem in a way that the previous Government did not. I venture to suggest that we would not be having this debate if we paid our dairy farmers a proper price for their milk, because there would be no need to consider super-dairies.

I have already made it clear that every farmer I have met is concerned more for the welfare of his or her stock than is generally accepted, yet the proposals for mega-dairies undoubtedly give rise to legitimate concerns about the welfare of farm animals. Although the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Minister, in his previous utterances, are correct to say that the most significant influence on welfare is the stock keeper, rather than the system, that statement depends on the existing status quo and, with regard to the proposals for Nocton and other mega-dairies, might not take into account potential future developments in the industry.

Future intensive dairy farmers, if we are to go down that route, will have to comply with existing welfare legislation for their animals, a point that I look forward to hearing the Minister confirm. Those animals will need space to move around in and adequate bedding, and all the other regulations for the existing dairy industry will have to be complied with. If we are to go down that route, there is no reason to believe that farmers would not treat their herds as well as the vast majority of small dairy farmers currently treat their own. It would not be in their interests to mistreat their animals, and I do not suppose that that would happen. However, it is equally clear that very large dairies require better monitoring, and different—much more stringent—animal welfare guidelines, and I hope to hear the Minister confirm that.

The point is that although poor welfare can occur in both intensive and less intensive systems, the evidence available from the United States and various other jurisdictions plainly shows that intensive systems are more predisposed to increasing the risk of poor animal welfare. Intensive milk production models are driven almost exclusively by volume; they demand high yields from cows to cover their inherently high set-up and operating costs. The relentless pursuit of more and more litres of milk to reduce the unit costs of production can take its toll on health and welfare, which is what concerns so many people. The toll on health and welfare can reduce the longevity of animals and place pressure and stress on them.

Experience from overseas, as I have indicated, is not promising. The driving up of milk yields through intensive selection has come at the well-documented expense of animal welfare, so the real fear is that mega-dairies in this country would do nothing to address the lameness, infertility and other health problems that already affect too large a proportion of Britain’s existing dairy herd.

However well cows are kept while indoors, it seems to many to be wholly unnatural to keep them inside all year round, and I understand those fears, although it is fair to say that that happens in some colder parts of continental Europe. Not allowing cows outside to graze during the grazing season seems to many to savour of battery farming, someone that this country set its face against a long time ago.

We must not ignore the fact that a lack of access to pasture concerns many people and is often responsible for animal health problems, which I do not exaggerate, as I am sure the Minister will accept. A review carried out by the European Food Safety Authority in 2009 concluded that zero-grazing systems give rise to a higher incidence of various health problems in animals and reduce their capacity to engage in normal social interactions. That concerns many farmers and many consumers when they turn their minds to the question.

Dairy farming has been part of this country’s agricultural economy for many hundreds of years and is part of our rural heritage, as it is in my constituency. That is partly why the reduction in the number of British dairy farmers is of such concern to so many of us. The numbers are frightening: in 2000 there were 23,286 registered dairy production holdings in England and Wales, but today the number is 11,233.

Many of those farmers have gone out of business for reasons to which I have already alluded—they cannot get a good price for their milk and too often have to sell at below the cost of production. I accept that intensive dairy farms could provide economies of scale and allow for greater mechanisation, which would start to reduce those trends, but I hope that the Minister will accept that that must naturally come at the expense of smaller operations.

To put it another way, although such economies of scale are great for the owners of intensive dairy farms, they sound a further death knell for many smaller producers. Although many people say that they would prefer to purchase their milk from smaller producers, there is, as the Minister knows, no requirement to label the origin of milk, a fact that supermarkets know well and wish to see continue.

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

On my hon. and learned Friend’s previous point, is he aware that a number of auctioneers across the UK are simply not taking bookings to sell milking cows until well into next year because there is such a backlog of farmers going out of business and trying to sell their dairy cows?