Welsh mega-dairy
Getting to the heart of country life. Sybil Ruscoe visits a large-scale or 'mega' dairy in Wales, where over 2,000 cows are milked three times a day and do not graze outside.
Howell and Susan Richards run a dairy farm in Carmarthenshire, Wales. They started with a smallholding and now they have over two thousand cows. For this week's On Your Farm, Sybil Ruscoe visits them at Cwrt Malle Farm - to discover how a dairy on this scale operates.
The cows are housed year-round, never grazing on grass, and the farm is currently producing around 68,000 litres of milk per day. This type of larger-scale or "mega" dairy farming is deeply controversial in this country. Critics raise concerns over animal welfare, the environment, smell, visual impact, and planning battles have raged. For Howell, who was inspired to farm in this way after a trip to the USA, it is efficient and uses new technologies and best practices from around the world to deliver clean conditions and welfare benefits.
Presented by Sybil Ruscoe and produced by Rich Ward.
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- Sun 15 Jun 2014 06:35±«Óãtv Radio 4