‘Moo’sings from my time on the farm

“Buwch buwch” I shouted coyly, trying to copy what the farmer had done hours earlier. For some reason though the cows didn’t respond in the same way to my Pidgin Welsh. You could tell they were thinking “what on earth is this city kid doing here?”. The quad bike stalled again and my cheeks flushed red with embarrassment… before I realised that I could trust the cows not to tell the farmer about my inept cow herding ability. The last few cows flicked flies away with their tail. They scornfully turned away to join the rest of the herd ambling down the long track to the parlour for their final milking of the day.

I’d been tasked with herding up the 150 or so cows from the field at the far end of this farm. This farming experience - spending a few days learning about farming in the beautiful setting of North Wales - was part of my recent sabbatical. Despite working in the food system for about seven years - for a major food manufacturer and with lots of well-known retail and food brands, I’ve never really spent much time on a farm. That was something I wanted to change.

And I’m very glad I did. I can’t now claim to be a farming expert. But it did give me some insights into some of the challenges and opportunities around farming. I was very lucky to be looked after by an amazing farmer who generously gave up a lot of time to explain the intricacies (and the basics) of dairy farming.

What did I learn? Here’s four (of the many) things I took away from the experience:

Firstly, farmers know their land and animals better than anyone. That doesn’t mean they know everything nor that we can relax because sustainable agriculture has already arrived (it hasn’t). But, it highlighted to me that attempts to impose (environmental or animal welfare) standards on farmers without consulting them first won’t work. We need to respect their expertise more and to get value chains to collaborate more. That’s why it’s great that Dairy 2020 – our exciting collaborative dairy project – is already in full swing.

Secondly, the intensive farming debate (‘intensive bad, extensive good’) is not as black and white as the Holstein cows, like many foodies argue it is. I’m not suggesting we shift to mass factory farms – far from it. But I do think we need to open our minds up to the potential that we need multiple styles of farming. The farm I was on operated on a high input, high output model, with (to my untrained eye) seemingly happy cows and with the farmer doing what he could to minimise environmental impacts (e.g. through generating his own energy on-site). There are examples of more sustainable farming out there that others can learn from.

Thirdly, it reinforced my belief that Forum’s food strategy is (in my biased opinion) spot on in the way we’re looking to accelerate the shift to a sustainable food system (see slide show below). If we are to raise social, environmental and animal welfare standards of food production, then we need to help people reconnect with sustainable food. If we want to maintain security of supply of food, we need to rebalance equity and fairness in the value chain, so that the burden of risks and costs isn’t disproportionately taken on by farmers and growers. And if we are to be able to feed a growing population, we need to restore resilience in the food system - making more effective use of resources and cutting waste. That doesn’t mean we should focus too much on supply chain efficiency, as the danger is that it will be at the expense of broader ecosystem resilience.

Fourthly and finally, hanging out with cows (or on farms in general) is definitely worth doing. I’d urge all of you – particularly food buyers stuck in supermarket head offices – to get out there and learn about farming first hand. But practise your cow chat first.