Local Food Heroes - Stephen Wheeler speaks to Rob and Sue Warren of Oakley Farm
If you take doorstep deliveries of fresh milk in Gloucestershire, the chances are some of your milk has come from Oakey Farm in Moreton Valence in the vale of Berkeley. Rob and Sue Warren and their teenage triplets have lived in their rambling 15th century farmhouse and been dairy farming since 1997, after their search for the right farm took them as far as Utah, USA. Like many farming families, Rob is third generation on the land; his grandfather having started as a tenant farmer in the 1920’s. I chatted to Rob and Sue about the challenges of modern dairying in their farmhouse kitchen with Silas, their black Labrador, listening in at our feet.
In the face of falling price milk prices, and persistent cheap imports, Rob felt that survival depended upon scale efficiencies so three years ago they took the decision to increase the size of their Holstein-Friesian herd from 140 head to 400. As dairy farms in the UK now average around 100 milking cows, the Warrens are running an impressively large operation, having invested millions of pounds in the most modern milking and animal housing facilities available .The herd at Oakey Farm now send 10,000 litres per day of milk to a bottling plant in Tewkesbury – that’s around 17,500 pintas on Gloucestershire doorsteps; residential, catering, wholesale and retail.
“We had to grow to preserve our livelihood,” said Rob. “Farm-gate prices of milk are everything. Our current return is around 25p per litre, which is better than 2002 when it went as low as 17p – but 25p is the same price as 15 years ago. Of course our efficiencies had to increase,” explained Rob.
Oakey Farm employs five full time herdsmen and dairymen, leaving Rob time to concentrate on running a thoroughly modern business and stock management. At least one newborn calf a day is delivered on the farm’s ‘maternity ward’. Dairy farming in England has been swept up in the globalisation of food politics and pricing, “but on the plus side,” says Rob, “we live in beautiful countryside, I don’t commute to work, and I can make time to see our children growing up. The Warrens are certainly local food heroes who have adapted their way of life to succeed in 21st century farming.
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12th December 2009
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