It was a great day out to attend Dairy-Tech at Stoneleigh Park in Warwickshire last week. This is a terrific event organised by the Royal Association Of British Dairy Farmers (RABDF) which brings together trade stands of all that is exciting and new in the dairy industry.

The highlight of the day was to be the speech by the newly appointed Defra Minister, Mark Spencer, the son of a dairy farmer.

Unfortunately he decided not to turn up but I was able to talk to someone who works with him.

They said he is very tough and very tunnel-visioned. Let’s hope the tunnel is pointing in the right direction.

Agriculture last

You notice there is no longer a Ministry of Agriculture but a Department for the environment, food and farming, with agriculture coming last.

One really good innovation is the Dairy Hub, a sit-down venue with various speakers who are given a 15-minute slot to deliver and discuss an enormous variety of topics, the most pertinent of which was by Kite Consulting.

They showed a graph of how milk production costs had tracked milk prices for 700 recorded farms for the last 10 years (except for 2016 to 2017 when the milk price was 2.5p below the cost of production).

Now, although the price has approached 50p, they are certain the price will fall to low 40s, probably even lower, but cost of production will not.

There is some movement down of electric, fertiliser and meal but not enough to compensate.

Even this news refused to dampen the spirits of attending farmers who are just glad to be back after a two-year break, even though many milk buyers that day announced cuts of 4p for March 1.

These dramatic cuts will just increase the already considerable numbers of dairy herds dispersing.

The average 59-year-old dairy farmer, facing not only these price cuts, but the necessity of large borrowings to cope with the new slurry containment regulations, will just create a vacuum which existing producers will be unable to fill.

When you stand back and compare our own industry with any other, where do you find a business with the Chief Executive works a 12-hour day, seven days a week in a lot of cases? This is the situation which the next generation is not keen to follow.

At home we are well into calving the spring group and realise that to sell the beef calves before weaning will be difficult because of the price of milk powder.

We will shortly start grazing, days only

Also the drop in milk price has started to decrease the price we can expect for our surplus spring calving heifers, although turnout might help, as farmers are now short of feed. The good news is we will shortly start grazing, days only.

For the first time we have bred a Friesian bull that is three generations Excellent and six generations EX and VG, 1.4% in bred, with great longevity, production and milk quality all through the line. We have had three generations of his family in milk. At Dairy-Tech my wife discussed taking semen.

After having only one hundred horsepower tractor on the farm for many years we have purchased a second tractor for yard scraping.

This is a brand-new 57hp Kioti four-wheel-drive. It is absolutely fantastic and it’s so quick and agile I wish we bought one years ago. It is small enough to get into all calf housing with the front-end loader which can lift a tonne.