{"id":854,"date":"2022-04-08T10:38:56","date_gmt":"2022-04-08T10:38:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland\/?p=854"},"modified":"2022-04-08T10:38:56","modified_gmt":"2022-04-08T10:38:56","slug":"making-dairy-fairer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/heart-of-the-county\/making-dairy-fairer\/04-2022","title":{"rendered":"Making Dairy Fairer"},"content":{"rendered":"

The folks at Rutland\u2019s slaughter-free eco-dairy, Ahimsa, believe there\u2019s a better way to produce milk. As we consume 14bn litres of the stuff every year, we should probably take note… which is why this month, we\u2019re paying a visit to a very different kind of farming operation…<\/h3>\n
\"Ahimsa
Ahimsa is based at Wing and Chater Valley.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sometimes, the best thing to be is\u2026 different. Sometimes people, companies or entire industries can become mired in convention when, in fact, innovation is needed instead. Milk may be one of our grocery staples, but as farming has become more mechanised, and as the dairy industry has seen the emergence of behemoth farms, somehow dairy farming is neither more humane, nor as profitable as it once was, either. And the milk itself? Thin, not very creamy, processed and very\u2026 ordinary.<\/p>\n

Failing both farmers and consumer, the entire dairy industry needs a (milk)shake-up, and we reckon the folk to do it are the founders of Ahimsa. These local advocates of slaughter-free started on borrowed land at a farm in Kent, but moved to land they purchased in Rutland in 2016 with milk produced in accordance with principles of non-violence, and aside from the ethical constituent, it is a very good product.<\/p>\n

Director Sanjay Tanna founded Ahimsa 15 years ago with a desire to offer consumers ethical high-welfare slaughter-free milk.<\/p>\n

Today, he and his team have succeeded in crafting a business model which they say is viable for communities, and to prove it they\u2019re already selling their milk in Rutland and London, with a further 600-odd customers on the waiting list.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s impressive, but even more so as their milk retails at about \u00a34\/litre. That\u2019s about four times the price of supermarket milk, but the demand for it proves that the consumer is absolutely willing to pay more for high-welfare milk.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe founded Ahimsa and spent the first few years campaigning, and seeing if there was a demand for slaughter-free milk if it costs more than \u00a33. We opened our small dairy operation in 2011 with just six cows.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe early days were funded by a pay-it-forward campaign, with customers paying for their milk sometimes two years in advance. We then acquired 72-acres of land at Wing on which our 40 cows, including our milking herd of around 12 cows lived.\u201d<\/p>\n

April 2021 saw the acquisition of 40 more acres in the Chater Valley on the site of a former equestrian centre, which is now used as a visitor centre and a facility for educating other farmers and smallholders in the model that Ahimsa has created. That model advocates a different approach to dairy farming \u2013 one that is characterised by high-welfare and slaughter-free policies.<\/p>\n

Conventional dairy farmers have increased the size of their herds, supplemented arable-derived pasture diets with mass-produced feeds, mechanised their milking operations, and formed co-operatives. The result? A year or two ago, they were pouring milk down the drain, unable to make a profit from it.<\/p>\n

And so, the idea of doing what Ahimsa advocates \u2013 scaling back production and embracing traditional farming methods; keeping a dairy cow for her 18-year average lifespan rather than just her five or six productive years; keeping the oxen instead of selling them for meat, relying on arable pasture rather than mass-produced feeds \u2013 would seem even less viable from a commercial farmer\u2019s point of view.<\/p>\n

Against conventional wisdom in the industry, though, Ahimsa is doing very well both in terms of its own viability and as a model for other farmers and smallholders to follow suit. The dairy has formed a partnership with Little Bytham based farming family the Turners.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were seen as cranks by the industry at first,\u201d says Tanna, \u201cbut not anymore. We\u2019re not the new boys now, and we\u2019re much more widely accepted when we turn up to events like January\u2019s Oxford Real Farming Conference. One of the earliest people to express an interest was John Turner. The family are fourth-generation farmers whose daughters decided to follow vegetarian or vegan diets. Suddenly the family beef farming operation seemed at odds with their lifestyle, and together we started to explore and refine the methods we\u2019d been advocating.\u201d<\/p>\n

Our next project is to put the oxen to work on a small corner of the Turners\u2019 arable land. There\u2019s a real symbiosis as the boys, as they move across the land drilling crops into the soil, and as they drop manure, that material has an almost signature microbial composition that\u2019s unique to the soil which results in noticeably stronger quality crops.<\/p>\n

The farmland that the oxen work will be used to produce oats for our own brand of Ahimsa plant-based oatmilk.\u00a0The Turners organic farm also produce heritage varieties of wheat, and interestingly, it\u2019s the only land in the UK we know of that produces organic marrowfat peas, some of which are exported to Japan for the production of wasabi. As part of the crop rotation, the oxen, the girls (including the milking herd) graze the top quality organic pasture exclusively with no need for commercial feed.<\/p>\n

Whilst the boys are at work in the arable fields, the girls of the milking herd are milked twice a day, usually by hand. At the moment with one of the cowhands having hurt their hand, there\u2019s a small portable machine that\u2019s lending a hand for milking, but ordinarily, the physical milking helps to slow down the operation and make it less mechanised.<\/p>\n

\u201cMilking by hand allows you to build a\u00a0relationship with the cows, to look out for\u00a0illness and to have that contact with the\u00a0animal,\u201d says Tanna.\u00a0\u201cWe milk directly into a bucket, which is poured into the churn and then it\u2019s taken to the micro-dairy on site. We mostly offer our milk raw \u2013 just bottled and refrigerated \u2013 but also provide pasteurised milk too, for those who prefer it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s creamier \u2013 you can see that in its\u00a0viscosity \u2013 and because it\u2019s not been\u00a0homogenised the cream sits at not only at the top of the milk, but is throughout the whole bottle! We also produce cream and offer a semi-skimmed milk as well. We\u2019ve a small cheese-making operation, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

The dairy has a local round which currently takes in Oakham, Manton and Wing.\u00a0It\u2019s also sold down south where Ahimsa\u2019s operation is already familiar to those at Queens Park Farmers Market.\u00a0Some dairies have begun to offer milk vending machines which are essentially big fridges with dispensers, but for the moment, Tanna prefers the idea of having face to face contact with customers, although they do like the idea that customers can bring their own, reusable vessels rather than relying on single-use plastic.<\/p>\n

Ahimsa is also working with PhD students from UCL in London to create a biodigester system which can utilise methane to produce hot water for the processing unit. The idea is that each element of the operation is as sustainable as possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want slaughter-free farming to seem like something at the fringes of the dairy industry,\u201d says Tanna. \u201cAnd actually, it\u2019s practical and viable and it\u2019s good for consumers and the animals, and for farmers too. Our operation makes sense to us, and so the next consideration we\u2019re keen to address is that of certification so that our model can proliferate throughout the industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ahimsa says it has a very good working relationship with Defra, who are very interested in what the operation does. But current farming policies and guidance are designed to reflect conventional farming operations.\u00a0To truly embrace slaughter-free, high-welfare dairy farming,<\/p>\n

Sanjay and his team, and their other Ahimsa partners are keen to table a framework and tie that into the programmes of education they are creating \u2013 one being their Future Farmers course for 18-35 year olds \u2013 so that the farm\u2019s principles aren\u2019t just applied lazily as a marketing boast to anyone selling milk for a premium price, but are applied consistently and completely. The farmers are also keen to offer a transitioning model for existing dairy operations, and to offer certification in the future.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s taken 15 years to prove that the model Ahimsa proposes is commercially viable, but it\u2019s an approach worth exploring, certainly, because dairy products are consumed by 98% of the population with the average person consuming 144 pints of milk a year.<\/p>\n

Given that milk is one of the most commonly purchased products in our shopping basket, nobody could argue that we owe it to ourselves, to the planet, and most\u00a0importantly to the UK\u2019s 1.84m dairy cows to produce the best quality milk, as sustainably and as humanely as possible.<\/p>\n

Find Out More: Based in Wing and at Chater Valley, see www.ahimsamilk.org for more information on the dairy\u2019s high welfare operation.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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