'UK can learn from giant dairy operations'

Paul Robinson, Beverley-based agent for dairy consultancy Kingshay, got a Nuffield scholarship to look for answers to the fertility problems which come with high-yielding cows.

His outline report, summing up the purpose of his travels, says: "I trained in DIY AI in 1985 and have seen my own AI conception rate drop from 66 per cent to 47 per cent in 2005. This decline is significantly affecting the profitability of many dairy farms and must be improved."

His search took him to some surprisingly small herds, but also to the kind of megafarm which is proposed for mid-Lincolnshire. In Saudi Arabia, he saw 22,000 Holsteins averaging 11,510 litres a year – compared to a UK average of 7,648 (for all breeds). And they were roughly equalling UK measures of fertility, even in summer temperatures of 50C. Certainly the trade-off between milk production and calf production was much better than the UK has seen.

Initially, he was told, the Saudis were losing 30 cows a day to heat stroke, but the cows can now retreat to cooling corrals which seem to have stabilised the situation.

Mr Robinson, now 45, grew up milking 32 cows on the family farm near Denholme, on the Halifax-Keighley road, before milking and managing herds all over the UK.

"With that background, I was absolutely in awe of what was being achieved, effectively in the middle of a desert," he said this week.

In the USA, he found some farmers getting 14,000 litres a cow with even better fertility. And in Sweden, where better milk prices support much smaller herds, and more vets per head, he found some common cattle ailments had been eradicated and lameness was running at less than 10 per cent in herds producing an average of 9,000 litres.

He is now writing up his findings for a Nuffield scholars conference in November.

He believes the mega-farms do well because they have been scientifically planned, whereas UK herds tend to grow under pressure, stretching their buildings and their workforces as they do.

All the most successful farms had what he sums up as a "dry and open" diet, including a lot of alfalfa. He thinks most British silage is too wet and acid.

His conclusion is that there are many factors at work in the 'Holsteinisation' of dairying, besides the straightforward conversion of breeding energy into milk production.

"There is no silver bullet," he summed up. But he thinks there is clear evidence that the UK is still suffering from over-emphasis on selection for productivity.

CW 9/10/10