It’s hard to believe that it’s been just over a year since my lovely editor took a chance on this stay-at-home mum and wife of a farmer to commission my dairy diary column.
On the farm there have been a number of changes, big and small, from giving the cows pink Himalayan salt licks and buying a new bull to fitting solar panels on the roofs of the cattle sheds and converting the calf houses to a custom-made milk processing and production unit (more on this next month).
At home the biggest change of all has been the arrival of another precious baby girl. And I’ve found what other mums told me before Mollie was born to be very true: that a second child fits in (they have to really).
So while it took me until Daisy began nursery to return to any sort of work – creating the brand and concept for our ice-cream business – I’ve been doing bits and pieces pretty much since Mollie was two months old.
I realise of course how very lucky I am to be able to work from home and am grateful that my writing offers me the flexibility to juggle work with a young family without the costly need for childcare.
This month Nick has also charged me with creating a new strapline for the milk processing side of the business since soon we will be adding yoghurt to our range of ice-creams, and then pasteurised milk. I need to come up with a label for the yoghurt as well as this should be ready for sale by next month, followed by our own farm milk.
We are still looking into potential packaging and currently love the idea of traditional glass milk bottles, particularly as these could be recycled.
As to what would go on the label, we could definitely differentiate our product from shop-bought milk because it will be locally produced and non-homogenised but are still undecided about including the slightly contentious free-range label.
There has been much in the media lately about developing the free-range milk brand in the same way as there are free-range eggs, chicken and pork, etc, and with my marketing hat on the free-range concept really appeals.
Based on the phenomenal success of the free-range egg market, I think that some consumers would be willing to pay a premium for free-range milk.
After visiting the newly established Free Range Milk Marketing Board (FRMMB) website (www.freerangemilk.net), there doesn’t seem to be any concrete definition of what free-range milk is apart from a fairly fluid statement that “cows simply get the freedom to graze the fields”.
Waitrose has pledged to only sell milk under the free-range label from cows with access to outdoor grazing for 100 days of the year.
However, BBC Farmer of the Year 2014 Neil Darwent, the driving force behind the original free-range milk concept and founder of the Free Range Dairy Initiative (www.freerangedairy.org), stipulates cows should be out at grass for 180 days (six months) to qualify.
The Somerset farmer who founded the FRMMB, Nick Hiscox, believes this does not take into account the varying climates and conditions for farmers across the country – something my northern farmer would agree with.
The Rootfield herd has been outside since the beginning of the month and, depending on the weather, the girls will stay there until late October. So this would take us to just shy of the 180 days required by the Free Range Dairy Initiative and well over the 100 days suggested by FRMMB.
However, if it turned out to be particularly wet come the early autumn, Nick would take the cows in because not only would they be miserable but the cold and wet weather could lead to a whole host of potential health issues from problems with fertility to physical injuries.
It seems a pity that there is already division among advocates of what is essentially a great idea. And I’m not sure what the answer is because when I asked (my) Nick his opinion on the matter, he said that “if the system is well managed, the cows are far better off inside when the weather is cold and wet”.
“We can’t guarantee the weather so how can we promise consumers that we’ve managed to have the cows outside for a set number of days?” he adds. True, dear husband, but I should very much like to label our milk as free range so I shall be giving it some more thought.
With the cows back outside, Nick is somewhat more concerned with the problem we have with dog poo. At 200 acres, the farm is not huge and is bordered by a number of houses and the problem is that the one or two folk who walk their dogs in our fields do not always pick up after their four-legged friends.
As other farmers know, if cattle eat grass contaminated with dog faeces it can cause a serious and life threatening condition called “neosporosis”. Not only does it cause pregnant cows to abort their calves but last year, Nick had to put down one of his Jersey cows because it had the disease.
All that said, it is wonderful to see the cows in the green fields – the rural idyll – especially after the unexpected late snow in April and cold spell over the bank holiday. We were very lucky with the weather the following weekend for our first ever family camping trip with friends to Big Sands in Gairloch.
I say camping, but it was posh camping in a well insulated and comfortable wooden wigwam with a kettle, heater, onsite cafe and shop. Nick even turned his hand to a bit of barbecuing on the Saturday, but by his own admission, farming is definitely more his forte.
NEXT MONTH: processing and production at Rootfield
Rootfield Farm is on the Black Isle, 10 miles north of Inverness, where Jo lives with husband Nick, a fourth-generation dairy farmer, their daughters Daisy and Mollie, and 150 cows