The milk price war in black and white

Banking one day, milking cows the next. That's the joy of this job! And today I'm off to the centenary celebrations of the British Friesian Breeders Club.

For 100 years now dairy farmers here have bred and milked the famous black and white cows that started life in Holland. Three hundred of these farmers will gather at Ben Pullen's farm just outside Gloucester and raise a glass to their breed.

So what's the story, you may wonder? Nice jolly if you like cows but otherwise...?

Well, Mr Pullen thinks his ladies may be a secret weapon in the dairy war. For a year now the milk price has been falling, and farmers who just sell milk are getting hammered. As one put it to me in Somerset the other day: "You have to get big, get niche or get out."

Then last week, one of our biggest co-ops, Dairy Farmers of Britain, went bust - leaving 1,800 farmers without a market for their milk.

The reasons why are actually closer to banking than milking.

Over the last few years India and China have got richer, and taken to ice cream, yogurt and all things milky. By mid-2008 the price of milk had shot up and farmers here were in clover.

Then the global recession hit, and Chindia's middle classes stopped spending.

Milk products, especially whey, are used in all kinds of processed food. And in a recession, processed food sales dip.

So where do our Gloucestershire Friesians come in? Well, most of the world's milk comes from Holstein cows, bred in the US for massive milk yields. A dairyman I know near Taunton joked to me that if you put a Holstein in a field, "they gather round the gate and look longingly at the barn".

But purebred Holsteins burn out, according to Ben Pullen, the chairman of the Friesian Breeders Club. After a few years of massive milking, they just fade away.

If they are the fast food joints of the milk trade, his beloved Friesians are the slow food brigade. They live longer, graze outdoors and, yes, produce a bit less milk. Crucially their male calves can be raised for beef, unlike the Holstein boys who are good for nothing commercial, and usually shot at birth.

The secret then, is a bit of cross-breeding. Mr Pullen reckons that a Holstein-Friesian cross produces almost as much milk but lives much longer and costs you less in vets' bills.

So as they raise a glass to the black and white ladies, the Friesian breeders are challenging dairy farmers to abandon the big-milking Yanks and take life a little slower.

Are you in the dairy business? How's the turbulent world milk market affecting your trade? And does a bit of Friesian juice in your herd make the ladies live longer?