Industry must do more to fill communications gap

Of course I am no expert, and have only my husband's experience to refer to, and the observations of our farmer clients who I talk to fairly often. I have one foot in the farming camp and one in the consumer camp, and see how misinformation can confuse and cloud people's judgments.

I am also a WI member and became involved in the debacle a few years ago when the resolution regarding Mega Farms was withdrawn at the AGM, (almost another embarrassing Tony Blair moment!). I had recommended that this should happen before the AGM as the resolution was unsound due to the lack of unbiased information in the national magazine headed "everything you need to know about . . ."

I felt that any WI member with no personal experience of farming, and there are thousands, would, having read the information, vote for the resolution to curtail the developments of large scale dairy farms.

The WI has not followed this with further discussion, and as far as I can find out, doesn't intend to.

Back to that Star article. I don't think it is helpful to use terms like "sustainable intensification".

Sustainable is all right but it is hard to define and quantify "intensification". True, there are farms with thousands of cows, but what should be explained is that they are divided up into small groups, which is better for the cows' welfare and health and practical management. If, for example 1,000 cows are milked three times a day, each self-contained group has spells between milkings when they eat, drink, cud and rest.

But the "antis" don't tell you this. Is that because they don't know? Or because it weakens their arguments to explain these facts? It is quite all right for cows to be milked several times a day – they would suckle their calf many times.

Peter has recently been on another advisory visit to Mackie's, makers of the famous Scottish ice-cream. They have a large herd of several groups of cows, milked through robots, which simply means they go to be milked when they choose, by automated machine. The cows are housed most of the time.

Another "unnatural practice" some would say. However, offer the cows an open door and see how many will choose to leave a comfortable shed with food and water "on tap" (excuse the pun), to go out in the cold or wet or hot fields. Not many.

To paraphrase the previous writer, we shouldn't assume that the public understands how modern farmers work to provide their food. And there is a big communication gap. It's up to the industry to fill that gap in a more understandable way.

• Rosemary Allen is a retired livestock farmer now living near Ellesmere and with her husband Peter is part of CowCash-UK