Episode 3 Gareth Wyn Jones - Milk Man

Milk - we pour it on our cereals and stick it in our tea.

In the UK, we consume over nine billion pints every year.

But have we forgotten where it comes from?

I don't think people really know how much work goes into getting milk

onto our shelves.

Along with the dairy farms and cows that produce it,

milk has shaped our countryside and our way of life.

The dairy industry is just one piece of the jigsaw,

within the whole countryside.

But now the industry is facing a crisis like never before.

This is the worst period I've seen in my working life.

Over the past 15 years, the number of dairy farmers

in Wales has halved.

On average, three farmers leave the industry every month.

It's an embarrassment on me and myself that I can't make it pay.

The traditional family dairy farm is in serious trouble.

There isn't a future for every dairy farmer.

Milk is now a global commodity and dairy is big business,

at the mercy of the world markets.

Can Welsh farmers survive in this new cut-throat world?

There must be room for the small family farm.

My name is Gareth Wyn Jones.

I'm a hill farmer and campaigner for the best of Welsh food and farming.

Do you know how much you are paying for your milk?

I want to explore the dairy industry from the inside,

from the cow to the consumer

and from the farm to the supermarket shelf.

I want to see what it takes to satisfy our thirst for milk

and find out if there is a future for the Welsh dairy farm.

On my journey through the Welsh dairy industry,

I've seen the challenges dairy farmers face

in an increasingly volatile global market.

The underlying thing is that we don't know

what's going to happen tomorrow.

I've seen how the big retailers source their milk and challenge

them on their prices.

As a farmer myself,

I feel supermarkets have played a big part in devaluing milk.

And how milk is processed on a huge industrial scale.

This is what it takes to supply the major supermarkets.

So, I want to see what the future holds for the dairy industry

in Wales and if there is another way of working.

I'm in the hills outside Lampeter to meet organic dairy farmer

Patrick Holden, a man with a different vision for the future

of Welsh agriculture.

In my opinion, as a kind of direction,

we need to try to think of the farm as being the main source of all the

food that the animals eat.

What we are trying to do here,

we are trying to feed our dairy cows to the maximum extent

from this hill.

Feeding the livestock is one of the most expensive parts

of the farm's outgoings. So, Patrick aims to grow as much as possible

on the farm, all organic,

keeping the business as sustainable as possible.

With a bit of luck, and some clement weather, this crop,

which is oats and peas, will constitute about 50% of the grain

that we are feeding to the cattle in the winter.

So, you are going back to the old-fashioned way of farming,

really? This is what would be here maybe 50 years ago.

Yes. After the war, there was still a lot of mixed farming in Wales,

a mixture of sheep and cattle, including dairy herds,

and arable land, growing grain, very often to feed the cattle.

So, this is really a way of you being self-sufficient, saving money,

-isn't it, really?

-Our ideal would be to produce as much food as we can

from this hill, with the minimum reliance on outside inputs.

At a time when farmers are under pressure to increase herd sizes

and cut costs, Patrick is swimming against the tide and staying small.

Do you think some of these bigger companies have driven people just

for that end goal, which is profitability?

During the time that we have been here,

farmers have been encouraged to get on a treadmill of intensification,

to have more and more animals, and I think that has done no-one any good,

especially the farming community, ironically.

Are you telling me big is not better?

I think small is beautiful.

We walked very slowly up to them all together.

Patrick moved down to West Wales in the '70s,

as part of the first wave of organic pioneers,

determined to start a quiet revolution in food.

Come on, girls. Let's do a fan shape and get them in now.

He's farmed the 130 acres of Bwlchwernen Fawr ever since,

and now milks around 70 Ayrshire cows.

Problem with modern dairy cows is that we've chased the yield...

-Yeah.

-Resulting in cows that never get out,

give 10,000 or 12,000 litres of milk.

Do we really want to drink the milk from those cows?

Ayrshires don't produce as much milk as other breeds.

But the milk is rich in butter fat and protein.

It's the perfect raw material for another product.

Since 2006, we took a big step,

we commenced cheese-making.

Before that, we were selling our milk away.

But we felt that we wanted to add value to the milk here on the farm.

And as we speak, 80% of all the milk that is produced here on this farm

is going just across the yard there through an underground pipe

into our cheese vat.

We are making it into a cheddar style cheese called Hafod,

so, really, the whole story is right here.

Working with expert cheesemakers,

Patrick and his family developed their own recipe.

They now produce 200kg every other day

and sell to shops all over Britain.

Wow!

That is a sight to see.

-This is a cathedral of cheese.

-It is! It's amazing!

It's just something that you don't expect to find on a farm, do you?

And these big lumps... When I looked in to begin with,

I thought they were just logs.

And you can just smell it.

There's 30 tonnes of cheese in this store.

And there's something wonderful about this place holding the fruits

of the farm's labour for a whole year.

I'm just getting a strange smell of hay.

Like I'm in a barn, a hay barn, an old-fashioned hay barn.

The cheese is a product of the farm, so the smells are of the farm,

of the grass, that the cows ate.

-Yes.

-So, this cheese is unique to this farm.

This store is full of microbes that are slowly transforming the raw milk

into cheese and giving it its distinct flavour.

That is just to break the seal, is it?

Yes, that's right. Right, now, what you do is take a piece off...

That's it. That's perfect.

That is just so creamy.

-Beautiful.

-You can taste another one if you want.

Just to try the difference.

Do you know what? I am definitely wanting to try another one.

But that was amazing.

The cheese tastes strongly of the farm and the land that made it.

This is your pride and joy now, isn't it?

Yes, it is and all food has a back story,

it's just that mostly we don't know it these days.

Because it is hidden from us.

-People have lost that connection with how this is done.

-Yeah.

It must be really lovely for you to come in here and see the fruits

-of your labour.

-It is, it's quite moving, really.

Of course, it's also scary, because we've got probably a quarter of a

million worth of cheese in this store, which all had to be borrowed,

because we didn't have capital to put into this business.

So, it's high-risk,

you do the best you can with all the different variables,

and then you wait and you cross your fingers.

We are just about climbing out of this big debt mountain that we've

accumulated. It looks as if we are going to start really paying off the

-borrowing now.

-But a massive gamble, a massive challenge.

The truth is that we had to go on this journey of adding value to our

milk as part of our survival strategy,

because you will know as well as I do that a dairy farm of 70 cows,

which in my opinion is the right size for a family scale dairy,

is not viable any more.

So, unless you add value to the milk one way or another,

it's difficult to survive economically.

I believe that this model of taking a raw material, in our case milk,

adding value to it on the farm and then selling a product with a story

is the right way to go -

not just for us, but for all farmers who have the capacity to do that.

Patrick found his farm at this size was not going to be sustainable

and he's looked for another way to make a profit out of what he's

producing and it's a big gamble and he has invested everything he's got.

But the control is in his own hands now.

If we can get more people to do this,

maybe if there could be more of a sustainable future for some of our

smaller family farms, this might be, you know, a way forward.

This isn't the first time that dairy farmers have had to adapt

in the face of adversity.

Now, the figures are startling.

More than 4,000 dairy farms have closed in the past four years.

The National Farmers Union says the industry is on the verge of

collapse, with thousands of...

The union believes up to a third of all dairy farmers

could go out of business in the next year, if they don't get more cash.

In the '80s, the European Union introduced quotas on the amount of

milk farms could produce and putting a levy on any surplus.

Milk prices crashed.

Here in Wales, some dairy farmers took to the streets in protest.

Leading the charge was Pembrokeshire dairy farmer's wife Thelma Adams.

Thelma, how bad was it 32 years ago?

Well, it was pretty bad.

We were told that any milk that was overproduced and that we would send

to the dairies would incur a charge of 30p a litre.

So, a lot of people just threw their milk down the drain.

Because there was no alternative.

People's livelihoods were at stake.

What were we to do on the family farm?

Was it worth carrying on?

But you felt very strong about it.

Your feelings were that something needed to be done...

-Yes.

-And it needed to be highlighted.

I thought of this idea of sitting in the bath and bathing in milk.

And we rode through the town of Carmarthen

on tractors and completely snarled up the country town.

Thelma, along with a handful of other farmers' wives,

took inspiration from Cleopatra, the Queen of ancient Egypt,

who was said to bathe in milk.

So, did the campaign work?

Yes, yes. In a light-hearted way, but getting, hopefully,

getting the message across that it was serious.

One of your catchphrases back then was that milk is cheaper than water.

The sad thing is that things are still just as bad, or even worse,

32 years later.

Because what other product can you say now is cheaper

than it was 32 years ago?

As a result of the crisis in the '80s,

Thelma and husband Gwynfor decided to steer their farm

in a new direction.

This is the curds that are actually being formed.

We are making sure they are the right sort of moisture for the

natural starter cultures to do their work.

And today, their business continues to thrive under the watchful eye of

Thelma's son, Carwyn.

They now produce a variety of speciality cheeses,

including Thelma's original Caerphilly

and their award-winning Perl Las.

So, this is all one type of cheese, this one?

Yeah, this is all Perl Wen, this one.

Perl Wen wheels, they'll be about 1.2 kilos in weight.

-Oh, there's a weight on that.

-There is some weight.

-But there's still a lot of moisture left in that.

-Yes.

So, that will drain slowly overnight. They are quite big,

but they'll end up about half that size by tomorrow morning.

-Right, this is tough.

-Is it?

-Really tough, yeah.

-OK.

-Whatever you do, don't let go.

-You pick it up and turn it over.

-Just... Just be gentle now, OK?

-Because...

-Up off this and flick it over...

-OK.

-Ready?

-Yeah.

That's it.

That's not easy. That's not easy.

-That goes back, then?

-Yeah.

Leave it to the professionals.

The farm no longer has its own dairy herd, but instead,

sources all of their milk from farms in the surrounding areas.

And the farmers that supply you are quite happy with the price

-they are getting?

-I hope so.

We can actually give them a bit of a premium back

from what they would get on a commodity market.

They want stability as much as we do.

And I also want to be fair as well, at the end of the day.

-It's a working relationship.

-Yeah.

The last thing I want is an angry supplier, because, you know,

somebody angry isn't going to put love into the work, are they?

No, no. No. You are the middleman, really.

You've got the power, as much as anybody else here.

I guess so, yes.

Basically, the plan really is to buy as much milk as I can,

so we can process more and hopefully have more sustainable countryside.

That's the challenge for me, really. So I can give something back

-to the economy.

-Is it a nice feeling to take that power back

to yourself, really? You are helping a lot of people

within the local economy by doing this, are you?

Yeah, I like to think so.

At the end of the day, it's a business, but, you know,

there's lots of other businesses you can do.

This is something quite close to my heart, really.

-Yeah.

-It's difficult to find work around these areas.

So, if I can do something in the countryside

and make other people work in the countryside, then it's great.

Yeah. By diversifying, Thelma and her family

have secured the future for their farm

and for other farms around them.

Many people believe this is the way forward.

Dr Sean Rickard is a former chief economist

for the National Farmers Union.

He believes there are big opportunities for producers

who are brave enough to embrace change.

Farmers are going to have to just learn,

as every other small businesses learn,

that you survive if you delight your market.

There's tremendous opportunities out on the world for people

producing quality dairy products.

There's not much opportunity for people who are just producing

bog-standard milk.

Dairy farmers need to turn their milk into a really good butter

or cheese and offer people something a bit different.

And you can find a number of relatively small farmers

who have very profitable businesses doing that.

So you're telling me there is a light at the end of the tunnel for

-the dairy industry?

-Of course.

-And that might be a way forward

-for these people?

-Absolutely. If I'm offering you a cheese

with a certain flavour, perhaps a certain additional whatever,

which has been produced from the grass grown in Wales, or whatever,

that's a different value proposition and what you find is that an awful

lot of people are quite prepared to pay a few more pence for that.

That's the way to do it. That's the clever way to do it.

That's the sustainable way to do it.

Wales is at the forefront of a food revolution.

All over the country,

Artisan food producers are reviving traditional methods

or developing new products.

-Hi, Gareth.

-Hello.

This is really different to see on a farm, a dairy farm especially.

-It's great.

-At her farm near Ruthin, Anna Taylor and her family

are using the milk from the organic Swiss Brown herd

to produce something for those with a sweeter tooth.

Woo-hoo!

Lovely. It started as a bit of a joke, actually, and we said,

"Wouldn't it be great to make ice cream?"

And then once we looked into it more and more,

it became actually a really feasible option.

We are going to be making honey and lavender.

So, it's using a locally sourced honey

from the Denbighshire area and a really delicious

lavender essential food oil.

-It's really good.

-Wow!

-So, you're going to do it all.

-Oh, right! OK.

'While most of the farm's milk is still sold into the organic bottled

'market, some of it ends up here in the family's very own

'miniature ice cream factory.'

So, everything is weighed in. A bit of skill to this.

-Definitely.

-Honey is not the easiest thing in the world to pour, really,

is it? You've just got me to do this, haven't you...

-Yeah.

-Because it's difficult, I think.

-OK.

Lavender. I love the smell of lavender.

-Pure lavender oil.

-Yeah.

-That is beautiful.

Yeah. That's it.

God.

'In a crowded marketplace, packed with big powerful brands,

'new businesses need to find a way to stand out.'

Really smells nice.

'Clever marketing, a unique product, and a positive story.

'Even the big companies were small once.'

So, do you want to try a bit?

You made that.

I can truly say that is absolutely amazing.

Those cows have been milked this morning, we've taken the milk,

brought it in here and turned it into something

that anybody can enjoy.

It's making a lot more money for the farm than you could do ever selling

-liquid milk.

-Absolutely, yeah.

It gives us the opportunity to offer stability for the farm,

but also something else,

a different option for our children to have when they grow up.

And it's quite an easy way to add value to a product, really.

Definitely more value than just selling the milk.

When you consider what they are charging for milk in a supermarket

and the farmers aren't getting much, really, as a general rule,

it is adding value to that product

and showing how fabulous that milk is.

It's fantastic to see these new products doing so well,

but I know it's not the answer for all farmers.

So, what about good old-fashioned liquid milk?

Over the past few weeks,

I've seen how complex the milk industry has become -

a vast national supply chain, very efficient and massively competitive.

So, you'd think this would be the last place for a small producer to

take on the big guys.

Well, you'd be wrong.

On the Lleyn Peninsula at Madryn Isaf is Llaethdy Llyn.

-Bore da, Nia. Sut wyt it?

-Helo, Gareth!

-Ti'n iawn?

-Ydw.

-Ti'n iawn?

-Pwy 'dy'r hogyn yma?

In the far west of North Wales,

they are too far from the motorway system to try and win one of the

supermarket milk contracts.

And as a small farm with just 80 cows,

Nia Jones and her family have found themselves struggling.

You know, our options are quite narrow, to be honest.

The farm isn't big, so we can't increase the herd.

The infrastructure isn't there. You know, we'd need some more

sheds, we'd need more land, we'd need a bigger milking parlour.

And it just...

-The maths doesn't add up at the moment, to be honest.

-Yeah.

So, they've been forced to find another way of working

and Nia believes she's spotted a gap in the market.

There is no local milk at all in north-west Wales.

It's all brought in to an area which is full of dairy cattle.

-Yeah.

-Absolutely mad.

But that's what we're aiming for.

That's our selling point.

It's fresh, it's local, and it's out on the shelf in a day.

They are taking back control of the whole supply chain.

They are milking, processing,

bottling and delivering their milk to the local area.

The Jones family are literally betting the farm on the idea

that people will buy local milk.

You've taken a big step into the unknown, really.

We have.

Still nervous about it?

Yeah, yeah. Yesterday was a bit of a...

"Oh, my God, what have we done?" day!

And then you have a good day,

because you've got all these insecurities.

People, do they want it, you know?

-Yeah.

-And then when they start buying it, "Wow, they do want it."

-Does that give you a buzz?

-Yeah, it does.

When I saw it on the shelf in Spar in Nefyn for the first time

and I saw a man putting it in his trolley...

-Yeah, yeah.

-After I'd finished snogging him...

I put him down.

That's the best sales pitch I've ever heard.

And Nia is not just selling milk, she is selling a story -

a small family farm,

a traditional way of working and a personal relationship with the cows.

I've got names for a lot of them.

-Have you?

-Mm.

-So you've got favourite as well?

-Oh, yes. Definitely.

-This cow behind you keeps looking round.

Yeah, they do. She's called Horny,

-for obvious reasons.

-Horny?!

I'm glad it's for obvious reasons.

Yeah.

My husband didn't do a very good de-horning job with her.

That's nice, that, isn't it, Nia, but you've got names for them?

They think I'm absolutely batty.

No, I don't think so.

There's one called Nia Mai, which is my name.

-She was born on the same day as me.

-Oh, brilliant.

Milking is just the start of the process.

While about half of the farm's milk still goes to a large processor,

the other half is loaded into a tank ready for the next stage.

-All the milking done and all loaded up.

-Yeah. Ready to go.

There's about 1,500 litres in there.

Unlike the milk we buy in supermarkets,

which can travel hundreds of miles to and from huge processing plants,

this milk is going just down the road.

In nearby Pwllheli,

Nia's husband Sion looks after their new processing plant.

A substantial investment for the new company.

This looks a really complicated operation.

Today, they are processing this morning's milk.

In this one room, the milk is separated, pasteurised,

and homogenised.

Everything has to be done to the highest standard

-and is strictly monitored.

-And the gauge on the front

is like a lorry tracker graph.

Every time we pasteurise, we've got to keep that as a record,

that it has gone to temperature.

It's not just milking the cow and sticking it in the bottle.

No. There is a lot to it, yes.

They also provide a range of products

to cater for different tastes.

This is what they call the separator.

Depending on what milk we want,

it separates the cream out of the milk and we are left with the skim.

So, you do the same as any other big dairy, really?

You've got to really acquire for everybody's taste here.

Yes.

Every week, this plant can bottle almost 10,000 pints of milk.

And it's all done by hand.

It's a bit of a different world for you to be in here

-than to be in the parlour.

-It's the only way I can see

that we can go forward.

I think this will be a better way of sustaining the farm from now on.

I'm overwhelmed with work, really.

We've had a bit of a shock how much milk goes into these places.

-Yeah.

-We are taking over 100 litres just to the Spar in Abersoch.

So, you are taking 100 litres to one shop?

Yes. Yes, and I have been every day.

While most of the major retailers sell four pints for a pound,

it costs around 50p more for four pints of Nia and Sion's milk,

but they believe it's worth every penny.

Does it give you a good feeling to see it here in the local shop?

-It is good actually. It is.

-You are in control of the price.

You are in control of the whole system.

And that's why we've done it, that's why we've done it,

more than anything, is to get that control back.

-Yeah.

-You know. It's the only way I can see forward

for my son, for my children as well, yes.

Nia and Sion have taken on a huge task.

Where once their job finished at the farm gates,

now they're taking on the whole supply chain.

-So, what's at stake here?

-Well, everything.

-I might as well be honest, you know.

-Is it?

-Yeah.

Put all your eggs into this basket.

Yeah.

Yeah, just hope that it works, you know.

You've taken a massive leap of faith, really, haven't you?

So, you must have a lot of faith in this product?

Oh, yes, I do.

And, you know, it shouldn't be sold for less than it's worth.

There's a lot of science that goes into that.

Many, many years of experience and if those farmers go,

where you going to get that experience from?

-It's time for things to change.

-Yeah, yeah.

And you're taking that first step, taking that change,

-hopefully?

-Hopefully, yes. Yes.

-Yeah. Da iawn.

I've got massive respect for Nia and Sion.

They didn't want to go bigger,

so they have taken that massive leap of faith and really gone for it.

They are selling the milk, bottling it, processing it, doing everything,

they are not depending on anybody else.

They are really standing up for what they are producing.

And I hope, I really do hope, that they succeed.

And so my journey through the dairy industry is over.

I've learned so much over the past few months.

It is an amazing operation.

I think it's changed my outlook.

Farmers are facing a complex set of challenges,

and I know there are no easy solutions.

-Keep going, that's what's important.

-Yeah, yeah.

-Thanks, Gareth.

-No problem. Diolch yn fawr.

But I really think that we, as the public, as consumers,

take milk for granted.

It takes a heck of a lot of work to put it into that bottle,

to put it on that shelf.

It doesn't cost a lot to buy, but it's worth a lot to those

who produce it.

And I think we need to value it more.

So, can I ask you all,

to raise a glass of this fantastic white stuff to all the hard working

dairy farmers out there.

Iechyd da.