In the milk sector, small family-run herds still have the edge

by NORMAN DUNN

All the more amazing in the milk sector, then, was the revolution in Britain, closely followed by Ireland, in the 1960s and '70s to loose housing and bigger herds of 100 and more milkers. Not only did the milk stand/free stall systems work but the cows performed better, according to official milk and financial recording.

Of course, hindsight has shown us that the runaway success of the early big herds with loose housing was mainly because the very best farms and herds were the ones who could, at that time, afford to risk playing the pioneer. For most, it was certainly a risk that paid off. While I no longer have the figures to back this up, I recall that in the early '70s a national average yield comparison amongst recorded herds in Scotland gave the bigger herds in no-tie systems an annual average advantage of around 100 gallons (450 litres) per cow.

The argument was very convincing. The intensive individual cow-care lobby lost a lot of ground, now 45 per cent of all dairy herds in Britain comprise over 100 cows and the days of the family-fed and milked herd seem numbered.

But just now the arguments in Europe for the smaller unit, where Dad and Mom know every cow, are reviving. Or maybe they are just starting on much of the Continent, because most of mainland Europe still features family-run herds and recent surveys have indicated that the ball is back in their court.

Inheriting the infrastructure hammered out by the former communist rulers has made eastern Germany an exception to Continental farm structure. For instance, the Baltic-coast state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern has an average dairy herd size of 314 cows. Now, there's nothing wrong with individual cow performance here either, although it's decades since a tie-up cow barn was seen in this region. In fact, average yield for the top 25 per cent of the herds in the last year was 8,335 kg.

But a comparison with Westphalia-Lippe, a top dairy area in western Germany, has demonstrated that best performances, when one compares the big eastern herds and the west's family-run units with barely 60 cows, are being demonstrated by the small players. When yields were compared last year between the top 25 per cent herds in both areas, average output per cow in the small-structured region was almost 300 kg more.

This turnaround for the family unit versus the milk factory is further emphasised by data from Denmark, where average yield for the entire country's 600,000 milkers is 7,100 kg and where the usual herd is still a family-run unit of 50 to 60 cows, the majority still in tie-up barns. The same applies to Sweden.

Of course, there's no doubt that when it comes to production costs per kg of milk, the bigger herds can really score. In a recent German study, the production of each kg in herds of more than 300 cows was equivalent to 42.8 cents per kg. For 60-cow herds in western Germany, this cost was 45.7 cents/kg. But, as shown above, these family farms produced much more milk per cow, and variable costs were 23 per cent lower because the small farms were able to make a much better job of their forage and therefore produce -- even on average -- almost double the amount of milk from silage and grazing!

This result is backed by a survey last year from the European Dairy Farmers (EDF), a club of top producers which regularly compares production costs throughout the Continent. This showed that the farms managing profits of 50 per cent more than the average in a selection of European countries tended to be family-run with a lot of attention paid to detail, especially the quality of the basic feed ration.

Now the arguments on this side of the Atlantic for the smaller dairy farm have come full circle. BF
Norman Dunn writes about European agriculture from Germany.

Foot-and-mouth arouses old antagonisms

by NORMAN DUNN

But the old suspicions of "foreigners" - forged by centuries of war and invasion - still linger on in modern Europe, although it takes a real crisis such as the current foot-and-mouth disaster, to reveal the undercurrents. The actual outbreak in Britain hasn't led to many recriminations, however. It seems that meat scraps from a restaurant originating from illegally imported carcasses were passed on to an innocent pig farmer as feed. "Could have happened in any country" was the fair reaction.

But after France and the Netherlands were hit by a series of outbreaks following the export of live sheep from Britain, the accusations followed thick and fast. Surely animals leaving their home country should be routinely inspected for notifiable diseases such as foot-and-mouth, felt the French.

The sheep in question were part of a traditional huge consignment leaving Britain at the end of every Ramadan, heading for halal slaughter in the major Islamic communities of northern Europe. This meant the animals travelled through northern France, through Belgium, then Holland and on into Germany. Sure enough, that's the track that disease outbreaks followed. But why were there no outbreaks in Germany? That was another question asked by at least the farmers in France, who are still looking on their neighbour's clean bill of health with more than a little suspicion.

The Germans, on the other hand, are now up in arms about the tactics of the Dutch. Just a few hours before the closure of the Netherlands borders - and after foot-and-mouth had been confirmed on several farms - it was claimed that a total of 34,000 slaughter hogs and cattle were shipped into Germany on a single day (March 13). Normal daily export numbers of livestock from Holland to Germany are between 5,000 and 12,000 animals. The Germans say their neighbours were obviously trying to limit the financial damage coming from an export ban, but are extremely angry that many of the pigs sent across the border at the last minute came from areas where foot-and-mouth had already been confirmed. Laurens-Jan Brinkhorst, the Dutch farm minister, has meantime added fuel to the flames by describing the action only as "completely legal."

Then there are the vaccination policy wrangles. Most farmers in all countries do not want to vaccinate against foot-and-mouth because important potential export markets such as Japan and Russia say they would refuse to buy meat from countries following a vaccination policy. But pressures in Holland - not least from the public after seeing whole herds culled only because a farm within a couple of miles was affected by the disease - led to a quick acceptance that vaccination be introduced in certain cases.

The British decision to ignore vaccination pleas up until the end of April has led to more than 2.5 million animals being slaughtered since February with just under 1,500 cases reported to that date. Most of the livestock slaughtered have been "possible contacts," on neighbouring farms to an outbreak, or where there had been actual personal contact with an outbreak area. France has only suffered two confirmed outbreaks so far, the Netherlands 25 and Ireland one.

Up until the end of April, the rest of Europe was reassured by Britain's determination to stamp out the disease by mass slaughter. British farmers mostly agreed with the hard policy, even although some of the finest and oldest pedigree cattle herds in the country have been lost in the process.

Then a five-day-old calf called Phoenix got into the act. Phoenix had been overlooked during a farm cull in the English county of Devon. When the white calf was discovered near its dead mother beneath a house-high pile of dead cows, vets arrived to kill the animal. But television cameras were already there, resulting in a public outcry and a government statement that the calf would be spared, and from now on a flexible policy would be followed in Britain as to whether "possible contact" herds would be culled or not.

The rest of Europe cannot understand this about-face. The claim is now that Prime Minister Tony Blair risks a Europe-wide rekindling of the waning epidemic purely because of sentiment. He changed his mind because of a single calf, crow the French and Germans. But the critics have perhaps overlooked an important point; Blair has to deal with an election. BF
Norman Dunn writes about European agriculture from Germany.

Will Europe's free-range hens end up indoors?

by NORMAN DUNN

While the whole of Europe was waiting for changes in the farm animal welfare laws long promised by Künast's Green party, nothing quite so uncompromising was expected. No phasing-out period, no acceptance of larger, more welfare-oriented cages with perches, nesting boxes and so on. Just "no more cages." Even so, the feeling is that other countries - at least in northern Europe - will probably follow the German line sooner rather than later.

Of course, the writing has been on the wall for some time now for conventional cage systems. The European Union had already determined that minimum floor space per bird in cages would have to increase from 450 sq. m to 550 sq.m by 2003, with conventional cages banned altogether by 2012. The aim was for so-called "furnished" cages to take their place. These are already being designed with at least 750 sq. cm per bird floor space, and also with perches, nesting boxes and scratching areas with sand or straw.

So what's going to take over now? Best bet is the aviary system - large, deep litter barns where the layers have free movement, perches and nesting boxes. These systems already house some six per cent of Germany's laying flock, and only slightly less in the United Kingdom and France. Of this amount, nearly half apply to flocks which have an outside run, ideally of fresh pastureland.

Now, I won't go into all the financial details here, but at prices equal to around $2.85 Cdn for 10 free-range eggs (from hens in a system with daylight access), the consumer in Europe pays well over 150 per cent more than for the battery product.

Will the public accept these much higher prices? The new minister of agriculture in Berlin could well have a special sense for the real feelings of the European consumer because agricultural/food economists are saying that the public will, indeed, pay-up for "high-welfare" eggs - once the batteries are gone.

But there are dangers in going completely "natural" in livestock production - dangers already experienced by the hog sector when it headed off into free-range systems in Britain, Ireland and Denmark.

First of all, there's much more of an animal disease risk out there in the fields. Countries with outdoor herds of hogs tackle this with excellent health management. But more veterinary control meant costs were higher than inside. This aspect, when applied to free-range layers and broilers, is much more serious. Poultry experts reckon that mortality increases by about 30 per cent when layers go free-range, with about six times as much medicaments required as in comparable battery cage systems. In Switzerland, where cages are already banned, mortality in free-range flocks is about triple that of battery systems in the past.

And, going back to pigs again, disease is not the only reason why the popularity of outside-run sow herds has dropped in the past four or five years. To start with, it was a good marketing ploy by retailers to label pork as coming from fresh field systems. But summers - not to mention winters - are famous for their high rainfall in Western Europe. The result was, and is, hogs up to their shoulders in mud and manure. Consumers passing in trains and in their cars soon got the message, a very bad one for the industry's image and for pork sales.

One look at most free-range hens systems, at least where the accommodation is not mobile, suggests that the same reaction is pre-programmed for this sector.

There's yet another negative aspect to livestock kept outside in Europe. The stocking rate of up to four sows and litters per acre needed to produce a decent gross margin leaves a sometimes intolerable burden of fresh nitrate and phosphate in the soil, a large proportion of which inevitably lands in the ground water during a wet year. So local authorities, as well as consumers, are turning against outdoor pig systems in some areas.

This could very well be the fate in store for free-range layers and broilers. The feeling in Europe is that big supermarkets will continue to push free-range layer systems because they believe this is what the public wants. Even at $3 for 10 eggs, nutritionists tell us that eggs are still fantastic value for money. The European consumption of around 200 eggs per head annually will, they feel, remain fairly stable.

But the doubtful health, welfare and environmental image of outdoor hens could mean that in the future "free-range" will probably mean indoor aviary systems with a roofed outdoor run. Prices will then average around $1.90 per 10 eggs, a cost most Europeans seem willing to pay for "happy" but still hygienic and healthy hens. BF
Norman Dunn writes about European agriculture from Germany.

The cynic's view -- "slow" food will only prevail if it is affordable

by NORMAN DUNN

These latest disease problems, adding to the confusion already caused by BSE, or mad cow disease, throughout Europe, have got politicians of every colour planning new schemes to reassure the public not only about the safety of meat but also that a new type of gentler, "closer to nature" farming is on its way. New standards will bring higher welfare for livestock, more hygiene and less chemicals in food production.

But the reactions are all very emotional. While it's true that the image for at least intensive agriculture in Europe at the moment is very bad, there are plenty of facts backing my rather cynical view that non-chemical, "slow food" will only get a toehold in the general sales charts if prices are reasonable.

Just to add some meat to the bones of this philosophy, let me tell you a true story about customer reaction to BSE in Britain. It's a fact that beef consumption has decreased year by year since mad cow disease was identified back in the 1980s. Just now, it's at around 15 kg or 33 pounds per person each year. But it is also a fact that beef sales had been falling steadily long before BSE broke out and now, 15 years on, the rate of decline has not changed. In fact, beef sales have sometimes bucked the trend and increased sharply. A careful look at the statistics shows that this occurs every time meat retail prices are slashed in marketing campaigns.

There was, for instance, a surge in red meat sales in Britain back in 1996. Behind this were campaigns by major supermarkets halving beef prices in some cases. A family friend in Scotland told me that, even in the midst of nightmare BSE reports, dropping the price of beef dramatically had all the supermarkets in his city sold-out within a day!

Someone should take the time to tell the German meat trade about this. There, butchers claim that beef consumption is down 50 per cent compared with a year ago, and there are plenty of reports about farmers unable to sell slaughter animals at all in some cases. But the retail price of choice beef cuts in the shops has not dropped a cent. Prime cuts were selling for $6.50 Cdn per pound at the end of February, the same price as February 2000!

This performance is right in line with the policy of Germany's new minister of agriculture, Renate Künast, who openly says she aims to stop all "mass-production methods" on farms. This means no cut-price sales campaigns in Frau Künast's country. A member of the "Green" or environmental party, she kicked off the year by telling farmers that she wants organic production (no chemicals and mainly home-grown feed) to be increased from its present level (around 2.5 per cent of the republic's farmland) to 20 per cent within a few years. Cutting stocking rates per acre to not more than 0.8 cow units is one of her aims for conventional farms, as well as organic ones.

Those who accept the new rules will be compensated by more government financial support than their conventional neighbours, she promises. But where's all the money going to come from? You've guessed it. The conventional farmers -- especially the big arable growers -- look like they're going to end up paying most of the bill. Their EU supports of up to $115/ac or so each year will probably be reduced. And it's felt that most of the cash will go to encourage non-chemical production -- or to support a form of integrated output based on applying pesticides only when certain disease or insect population thresholds are surpassed.

I started with the crisis in Britain, and there, too, big changes in traditional farming are being planned by the politicians. The U.K. minister of agriculture announced only at the turn of the year that the equivalent of some $3.65 billion was going to be spent on a 10-year scheme for "development of the countryside."

Limited cash is still to go to the traditional farmers. But they're going to become a much rarer breed if the English government has anything to do with it. Much more support is going to growers who sign up for a 10-year program of "managing land in an environmentally beneficial way." There'll be special grants, too, for rebuilding stone walls around fields, for planting trees and setting down hedgerows.

Also to get more financial backing are farmers who choose to grow more energy crops: wood and oilcrops for burning and producing electricity, for example. And, just as in Germany, food production from farms will be supported more if it is aimed from now on at the premium, high quality markets.

Watch this space for news of violent reaction, because the "closer to nature" farming schemes described here are also being established in the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden, and a point that seems to have been largely forgotten is that there's a population of 375 million out there in Europe, and it's growing every year. Now, it's a safe bet that maybe 30 per cent of this population would buy organic food now -- but only if they can afford it.BF

Norman Dunn writes about European agriculture from Germany.