Joe and Ro Collingborn run a very traditional dairy farm which was founded in 1910 and has virtually been a closed herd ever since. Their daughter Ceri and son-in-law Chad are partners in the business. They also run the very successful Brinkworth Dairy, using a proportion of the farm’s milk, which produces artisan cheese, butter, kefir, yoghurt and ice cream, as well as a milk round. The rest is sold to First Milk.
The pedigree Brinkworth herd is bred to a type, medium size, with good feet, legs and udders and classified 70% VG and Excellent, using Friesian and Holstein genetics. Excess heifers are sold in calf, and pedigree breeding bulls are reared for sale. As much milk as possible is produced from forage; the aim is for over 50%, though this was not helped by last summer’s drought.
Conservation goals
Ro, who wasn’t from a farming background, has always been interested in conservation and was delighted that this fitted in with the farm ethos. Farm ponds have been retained, trees left in hedges and eleven small woods planted. There is a wildlife corridor all the way along the brook which runs through the farm, and 1400 trees have been planted over the years. With some trepidation, she has been watching the recent pronouncements coming from the RPA, together with COP 26, and was concerned that there is no overall measurement used to measure carbon in the soil, though carbon sequestration, together with soil quality, is key to climate change.
It was an article by Sarah Bolt from Kingshay that reinforced her thinking, that dairy farming could be the solution, rather than the problem. The Dumas combustion test used by Kingshay is up-to-date and accurate and seemed the best test to use. Wessex Water kindly helped with the finance and seven fields, having had a variety of treatments, including severe flooding, were tested, and the soil organic carbon was found to be extremely high - between 7.4 and 8.8 %, with very good soil quality. The carbon stock on the best field was 99.00 t/ha. Further testing showed organic matter at 15%.
This encouraging result prompted Ro to think that dairy farming is very positive in the fight against climate change. Further research reinforced her belief that traditional dairy farming, often practised in the same area over many centuries could be hiding its light under a bushel. You could go further and say “bare soil bad, grass and livestock good. Currently, carbon is not being measured, or else is measured using a variety of different tests which is potentially very confusing. The situation cries out for a clear direction, using a common and up-to-date test.
Joe and Ro both enjoy writing, Joe writes for the Irish Farmers Journal, and Ro for Dairy Farmer and the Western Daily Press which she regards as an opportunity to extol the wonderful nutritional values of milk and also, inspired by the farm’s carbon results, to defend our industry’s environmental footprint, which she would encourage other farmers to do, by extolling the value of grass-based dairying.
