Countryfile ran a piece on Sunday the 13th of August that has raised more than a few eyebrows in the farming community and beyond. FarmingUK had the opportunity to speak to one of the farmers whose stock was shown during the segment to get his story.
John Bell was not featured in the segment as he feels his story was not the one that Countryfile wanted to run
John Bell is enthusiastic and passionate about beef farming. He has created his own totally integrated beef production system based on intensively fed dairy bull calves.
John buys his calves from Meadow Quality, after they have been fully weaned at a professional rearing unit and are around 4 months of age. He then raises them through to finish at 14- 16 months, on his own bespoke feed ration.
The final product is tasty, succulent and even rivalling Beef breeds in recent taste challenges! John is understandably proud of the system he has in place, and is currently finishing 3000 animals a year on the system, with plans to grow this to over 4,500 by the end of 2018.
John said: “It is disappointing the Counrtyfile chose to report the story the way they did, it could have been a very positive piece about how the Dairy and beef farming industries have jointly tackled the dairy bull calf issue instead of highlighting a practice that is now uncommon with unsubstantiated figures”
For many years the black and white bull calf was a bye-product of the dairy industry. This is certainly no longer the case as cattle originating from the UK dairy herd now account for 50-60% of UK Beef production, from schemes like Johns where pure dairy bred bull calves are raised to finish or where beef semen is used in the dairy herd to produce a beef X calf.
To put the figures used in Countryfile in context the UK dairy herd currently consists of approximately 1.9 million animals the “up-to” figure of 100,000 animals being shot at birth given by Countryfile would equate to under 5% of this number.
We are however highly doubtful of the accuracy of this figure due to no corroboration from any industry sources and the thriving industry in dairy bull calves.
Dairy farming is a resilient industry and has sought to move on from practices that Countryfile suggested were still taking place, and no farmer we are aware of will kill a healthy and valuable animal.
We expect the debate on this topic to continue for quite some time!
For more information on what is achievable by rearing dairy bred bull calves please follow this link: lhttp://www.meadowq.com/News-and-Events/post/dairy-bred-steers-what-is-achievable
