Farmers make pasture promise

Cows producing milk as part of the Free Range Dairy Network spend at least 180 days a year grazing in fields.

Members of the Free Range Dairy Network include farmers in Yorkshire. The network works with Grassington-based processor Dales Dairies. Suppliers, who adopt the network’s Pasture Promise logo on their product, receive a premium on top of their standard milk price for complying with the initiative.

According to the network’s director Neil Darwent, sales of its free range milk are forecast to double in volume this year but he is concerned that the marketplace is being swamped by claims that fail to represent the amount of time that dairy cows spend outdoors.

In a bid to address the authenticity of his farmers’ commitment to ‘free range’ grazing, he has published the number of days that cows are grazed on individual farms supplying milk under the Pasture Promise logo.

Mr Darwent said: “For too long, limited access to pasture for some of the cows, some of the time, often only four to six hours a day, has been used to maintain a widely held perception that all cows enjoy long summer days at grass, in the promotion of dairy brands.

“The Free Range Dairy Network was established to win a fair deal for farmers and cows, by giving consumers a more informed choice about the kind of farms their milk comes from. So, today, we are publishing details of the number of days that cows are grazed on individual farms supplying milk under the Pasture Promise logo, to give farmers truly committed to keeping cows in fields, a chance to win the recognition they deserve.”

The individual farms have not been named but show that in 2017 most grazed cows for more than 200 days and nights. On two farms where cows were kept outdoors for the longest, the herds were grazed outside for 252 days and 244 nights.

Outside of Yorkshire, the farms are located in Sussex, Somerset, Dorset and Gloucestershire. A typically shorter grass growing season impacts on the number of days farmers in the north of England are able to graze their cows each year.

Farmers are only permitted to bring cows indoors for up to one hour before milking starts and one hour after milking finishes each day. All herds are milked twice a day.