Meet the Producer – Buckwell Organic Milk, North Kilworth

The family milks 100 dairy cows which are a 3 way mixture of Fleckvieh, Norwegian Red and Normande to give a good versatile cow that produces both milk and beef.

The beef is processed by ABP and you’ll find the end products in the chiller aisles at Marks and Spencer and Sainsbury’s. The family also plans to start selling beef boxes direct to customers with the help of another local farm diversification business called Waterloo Cottage farm.

The family are progressive and forward thinking when it comes to farm sustainability and managing biodiversity, basically working in conjunction with nature. They’ve won plenty of awards in this area of expertise and quite rightly so. Rainwater harvesting from shed roofs helps to reduce water consumption and wind turbine has reduced their energy consumption by ¾.

Currently the farm is working with a variety of different researchers and scientific companies to help use data to drive efficiencies in their business.

One result has been to help reduce antibiotic use in the herd, which has been reduced by 87% in the last year. This is partly due to installing a Lely Astronaut, a robotic milking arm that can individually scan each cow’s udders when they come to be milked. Mastitis can be detected several days earlier with this method and can be treated holistically with udder mint for example, preventing further infection from developing.

The grass is grazed in sections throughout the day so the cows never come back to the same patch of grass once they’ve been milked. And the diversity in the grass is pretty impressive with a variety of different grasses, clover and chicory which the cows love to browse and encourages other wildlife species too.

Trace elements are spread on the grass which are absorbed when eaten by the cows. This has helped to boost minerals in the milk with a massive increase in selenium for example which has natural cancer fighting properties.

The milk produced on the farm is collected by the processing company Arla, which supply the milk onto McDonalds

Marcus and Sam recently started selling unpasteurised milk in glass bottles to the local community. Marcus pointed out to me that ‘before you are allowed to buy the milk, you are invited to have a farm tour’. ‘This all adds to the customer experience and helps with the public perception of farming’. Their first customers were a group of families who all home school their children, then through word of mouth things grew.

As you drive along the main road from Market Harborough to Lutterworth there is now a sign saying ‘fresh organic milk sold here’

Sam told me to order your bottles, all you do is send a Whatsapp message via the facebook page and arrange to come and collect your milk.

The family are very welcoming, keen to engage with their community and share their farming story and production with all who visit.

You’ll see the comfiest looking cows on their mattresses with robots scraping up their poo behind them. I’d call that 5* treatment.

And with all this technology at their fingertips it has meant that the family are not slaves to milking in a parlour twice daily and can concentrate on spending time with individual cows or with their customers.

To find out more about Buckwell Organic, follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BuckwellOrganic/ or Whatsapp: 07598488202

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