Nocton Dairies Ltd - US trip by dairy representatives

British dairy industry visit US

You may be interested to know there was a recent visit to the US to look at large intensive dairy units by various interested parties.

"US Dairy Visit by NFU - 4th July 2010

A group of 17 representatives from the British dairy industry formed a delegation that flew out to the United States last week on a fact finding mission organised by Kite Consulting , to find out more about large scale dairy farming ‘US style’."
http://www.nfuonline.com/News/US-dairy-trip---%e2%80%98dairy-farming-super-sized%e2%80%99/

http://www.kiteconsulting.com/_Attachments/resources/272_s4.pdf

So who were these interested parties?

1. Hayley Campbell-Gibbons – Chief Dairy Advisor, NFU
2. Alistair Driver – Political Editor, Farmer’s Guardian / Agricultural Journalist
3. John Avizienius – Deputy Head of Farm Animal Science, RSPCA
4. Simon Withers – Farm Services Manager, Arla Foods
5. Jason Bayley – Arla Foods Milk Partnership member / Asda-Arla farmer, Lullington, Derbyshire
6. Richard Davis – Farmer & Director of First Milk / Board Member of Dairy Co
7. Alan Wren – Commercial Director of Milk Procurement at Dairy Crest

I am still trying to find out who the remainder were (see below):
John Allen – Managing Partner, Kite Consulting (perhaps?)

'Sent: Friday, August 13, 2010 7:02 PM
To: enquiries@kiteconsulting.com
Subject: Dairy fact finding trip to US

Dear Sir/Madam,
I have read the various reports of the fact-finding trip to the US dairy farms and am interested in knowing who actually attended.

Please will you let me have a list of the delegates' names and related profession/organisation, as I would like to consider contacting them for their personal views on the visit?

Yours faithfully'

Update 19th August: No reply as yet, but I will perservere with my enquiries.  I have now written to the NFU as well.  If you can help me with my list please feel free to comment accordingly.

Photos from the trip can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/45211192@N07/sets/72157624484893822/

Update 27th August: I managed to have a chat with John Allen of Kite Consulting and he was most helpful in clarifying a number of points for me.  He also promised to supply a summary of conclusions from the U.S. tour - see the email below:

From: John Allen

Sent: Friday, August 27, 2010 12:11 PM
To: Geoff Hall

Subject: RE: US trip

Geoff
It was good to speak to this morning and I hope I answered your queries. I promised to forward my conclusions from the study tour set out below:

We need to speak with one voice as an industry

1. The diversity of systems in the UK is positive for consumers and to be welcomed with all capable of delivering good animal welfare, including larger scale dairies.

2. We need to build on the “Proud of Dairy” message incorporating a more pro-active message on family dairy businesses looking after and loving their cows as well as dairy being good for you.

3. The NFU welfare review needs to be linked to relevant industry bodies, DairyCo, DairyUK, RSPCA to provide a “Cow centric roadmap” to better animal welfare increasingly based on outcome measurement. We also need to be tough on producers who do not maintain high standards.

4. Producers need to become more professional about how they communicate with their communities and share in US training ideas via DairyCo.

Please come back to me with any further queries and as I mentioned I would be very happy to come and meet you and the residents to take you through our findings.

Best wishes
John


Here is some information on the current situation facing the dairy industry

Milk Production and Consumption

"... milk consumption has been in long-term decline for the last 40 years, down one to 1.5 per cent year on year." [Ash Amirahmadi - Arla’s trading director for milk and cream]

"The volume of national and AFMP milk has been much higher than anticipated and, unfortunately, it has coincided with retailer liquid milk sales being down. This has made the disposal of additional milk difficult, which is a problem affecting Arla and, in fact, the whole industry." [Mark Morgan - Arla’s milk procurement manager]

http://www.afmp.co.uk/appl/GB/GB145FAR/GB145CFG.NSF/AllGraphics/AWAE889KFM/$FILE/MMJuly_final.pdf

Protests on Pricing

Interesting protests in France regarding milk prices
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4efsMuIsqDo&NR=1

More here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY90oy-A4fE&feature=related

And finally, a change of heart by the RSPCA as reported by the Lincolnshire Echo

Animal charities join the fight against firm's bid to create 8,100-cow super-dairy
http://www.thisislincolnshire.co.uk/news/RSPCA-joins-fight-Nocton-super-dairy/article-2545914-detail/article.html