Blogs
The ICDA moves with the times
Next month, many in the industry would have been up north in the UK in Nantwich, getting ready to help judge the thousands of cheeses and to report on the International Cheese & Dairy Awards. However, the pandemic has made this a dream for 2021 now.
Keeping fit after 50
As we age, we need all the help we can get. There is muscle degeneration as the years progress, and diet is as important as exercise in keeping a person healthy and in shape to deal with the ageing process. As my mother used to say, “Getting old isn’t for wimps, Suzanne.”
The bureaucracy files
Over the weekend, Jeremy Clarkson was in the Sunday Times, noting that while the rest of us were in the garden, enjoying the sunshine, he was in his office filling out government forms for his farming activities. I am sure some of our readers were with him, filling out those same forms. He also rightly pointed out that few farms could manage without the government help the forms provide, but now that Brexit is occurring, the subsidy will eventually stop.
Investments and grants
There have been many positive news stories from the past week about investments and grants that will benefit dairy farmers across the UK, Ireland and Europe.
It’s World Milk Day
Today is World Milk Day, one of the two days in the calendar when the globe gets together to celebrate milk, dairy and all its marvels.
Business & trade, Dairy processing, End products, Ingredients, Sustainability
Support your local cheese maker
While the Great British Cheese Weekender to support cheese makers was good fun (8-10 May), I fear that the move out of lockdown in many countries is just going to be the start of troubles for the average cheese maker.
The issue of intervention
The news that the European Union is going to use intervention to help prop up the skimmed milk powder (SMP) and butter prices in the EU was not greeted with widespread joy everywhere in the dairy industry last week.
Day 50 from your lockdown
I realise many of you have had a longer lockdown than the UK, and have emerged to a new world where we all wear face masks and observe social distancing. We watch with hope as those of you wander out into the new world in whatever country you’re in, and try to make this new way of moving about work.
Something for the weekend
Something exciting for us cheese folks (and the many fans of cheese) is happening this upcoming weekend – the British Cheese Weekenders, an online cheese festival featuring live-streamed talks, tastings, farm tours, quizzes and cookery demos by some of the country’s leading cheese experts.
The evolution of cows
One of the strange by-products of this particular downtime here in the UK is the BBC always trying to teach you something. It’s almost as if some hack in the back office said, ah, this is our chance to shine.
It’s about transport
Late last week, both the US and the UK announced dairy assistance schemes. In the UK, Dairy UK and the Agricultural and Horticultural Development Board (AHDB) are working together to bring the industry together to identify spare processing capacity, how to stimulate demand and how production could be temporarily reduced.
Dumping of milk and effort
Any time you hear about a dairy farmer dumping their milk instead of having it sent off for processing, it is sad. All that time and effort on the part of the famers, their staff and their cows, just going down into the slurry pit.
Special delivery
This strange new world we inhabit has some interesting side effects. For example, we received a letter from the British Prime Minister himself this morning, along with a helpful brochure on what we should do during this time.
Trying to deliver
We’ve all survived our first week of working from home.