News flash: Michael Eavis wins RABDF Gold Cup 2014 at Livestock Event

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The award has just been announced. Background story to shortlist by Western Morning News

Somerset dairy farmers on shortlist for Gold Cup final

By Western Morning News | Posted: June 18, 2014

By Athwenna Irons; @AthwennaWMN

  • awww.westernmorningnews.co.uk_images_localworld_ugc_images_2760cf3efe1b3a6aed62ce84fa8d4a8a8ad.jpg

    Gold Cup finalist Neil Baker from Haselbury, Plucknett.

  • awww.westernmorningnews.co.uk_images_localworld_ugc_images_27666d13d5103f110d6dc7cceb9d354db30.jpg

    Gold Cup finalist Michael Eavis, from Glastonbury (right) with Worthy Farm manager John Taylor (left).

  • awww.westernmorningnews.co.uk_images_localworld_ugc_images_2760cf3efe1b3a6aed62ce84fa8d4a8a8ad.jpg

    Gold Cup finalist Neil Baker from Haselbury, Plucknett.

  • awww.westernmorningnews.co.uk_images_localworld_ugc_images_27666d13d5103f110d6dc7cceb9d354db30.jpg

  • Gold Cup finalist Michael Eavis, from Glastonbury (right) with Worthy Farm manager John Taylor (left).

  • Two dairy herds from Somerset have been selected as finalists in the prestigious NMR / RABDF Gold Cup 2014.

Michael Eavis, from Glastonbury, and Neil Baker from Haselbury Plucknett, fought off strong competition from 957 to make it to the final shortlist of six dairy herd entries.

The annual nationwide competition, run jointly by National Milk Records (NMR) and the Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers (RABDF), reviews the whole dairy business on a number of criteria, including how farmers make the best use of their resources and their commitment to the industry.

Michael Eavis of Glastonbury Festival fame, is a first-time finalist in the competition. Over the past few years herd manager John Taylor has worked in conjunction with Mr Eavis, making considerable changes at Worthy Farm which has seen significant results on the famous festival site. The farm used to buy in heifers, but after recurring disease problems, the decision was made to keep their own replacements using a contract rearer.

Average production for the year ending September 2013 – the judging period – was 12,101kg of milk at 3.96% fat and 3.11% protein on twice a day milking. The herd’s average lifetime dailyyieldaimages.intellitxt.com_ast_adTypes_icon1.png was 15.39kg.

As the music festival takes over the entire farm in June each year, maize is grown on contract and the cows are housed indoors on matting and shavings.

“We try to keep our system simple with as few diet changes as possible,” said Mr Taylor. “The biggest change has been growing more maize for the milking cows. We used to feed apple pomace as it was free from cider makers – but it’s very acidic. We had to balance it with bicarbonate, and since we’ve swapped it for maize it’s transformed the health of the cows.”

The second finalist from the region is Neil Baker from Rushywood Farm, Plucknett. He returns to the finals for his second year.

Mr Baker has managed to both grow his herd on the family-owned unit, with the head of stock rising to 1,200. He has also boosted yields from 10,940 litres to 11,500 litres. For the qualifying year, the herd averaged 3.71% fat and 3.23% protein with a somatic cell count of 105,000/ml.

“We’ve learnt from past experience that expanding cow numbers usually knocks yields, so we took things a bit slower,” said Mr Baker. “Often you grow before you should – before you have the facilities, but we invested first this time.”

The winner of the competition will be announced on the NMR stand at the Livestock Event, which takes place on July 2 at the NEC, Birmingham.

Read more: http://www.westernmorningnews.co.uk...tory-21249150-detail/story.html#ixzz36KLqc7g3
Read more at http://www.westernmorningnews.co.uk...1249150-detail/story.html#xoUZlCvahPoGYJcA.99
 

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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