Nocton Dairies: Animal welfare lobby slams plans
18 November 2010 | By Alistair Driver
ANIMAL welfare and environmental groups have attacked Nocton Dairies plans, despite the decision to cut cow numbers back by more than half.
Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) condemned the revised plans as ‘an unwanted and unnecessary industrialisation of dairy farming’.
Despite the smaller numbers CIWF said its ‘overwhelming concern remains that this is still bad news for the animals and entirely the wrong direction for dairy farming’.
It expressed fears that ‘this US-style factory farm could set a dangerous precedent for the future of dairy farming in the UK’. Producing milk on this scale would drive the price of a pint of milk down to levels most small farmers could not compete with, it claimed.
It said research had shown the ‘zero-grazing’ system Nocton would deploy is associated with increased risk of many health and welfare problems including lameness, mastitis, reproductive problems and a number of bacterial infections.
CIWF chief executive Philip Lymbery said: “The proposed Nocton development is still the wrong route for dairy farming in Britain.
“It threatens animal welfare and the countryside, will put hard-pressed family farms under even more pressure, and will undermine the integrity of our milk.
“The proposal remains unwanted, unnecessary and unwelcome. The bottom line is that cows belong in fields not in industrial dairies.”
CIWF campaigns manager Pat Thomas pledged the organisation would be ‘throwing all of our weight behind the battle to stop factory farming coming to the UK’.
Viva! described the decision to halve cows numbers and allow cows outside access at Nocton as a ‘victory of sorts’ but insisted it will continue to fight the plans because of the link between intensive dairy farming and ‘bad cow welfare’.
“We still object. It is not like we are going to throw up our hands and say it is wonderful what you are doing,” said Viva! campaigns manager, Justin Kerswell.
“The opposition to this project has sent out a very clear message to the dairy industry the British public are not ready for intensive dairy farming.”
The RSPCA said it would not comment directly on the application but stated it does ‘not approve or support systems which house dairy cows for 365 days a year, and they are prohibited by the Society’s welfare standards’.
But it added: “Just because a system is large, does not necessarily make it bad in terms of animal welfare.”
Friends of the Earth’s food campaigner Sandra Bell said: “Nocton’s promoters have scaled down their plans for now but with a view to expanding them in the future - and they still plan to cram their cows into massive sheds, rather than graze them outdoors.
“The introduction of US-style mega dairies would force small farmers out of business and push the UK’s farming sector further towards crisis.”
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