Jersey dairy farm closing after eight decades

A dairy farm which has been running for more than eight decades in Jersey is closing down.

Blanc Pignon Dairy Farm at Le Haule said the industry "had changed" and bosses had decided to cease trading after "much heartfelt deliberation".

Alice Le Cras, director of the family business alongside her sister Caroline Leng, said their six staff were told last week of the closure.

The director said it was a "very, very tough industry" and the farm's facilities had "probably just got a little bit too small to be sustainable". She added the farm currently milked 51 cows and they hoped local farmers would take them on.

She said: "We're quite a small facility - there's a lot of development around us that our actual field space close to the dairy parlour has changed over the years.

"We were the most modern facilities in the island for some time, but those facilities were, in fact, built in 1967."

Le Cras said dairy was "probably one of the hardest, if not the hardest, of all farming industries".

She said: "I think that the dairy cows are also very hard working and, you know, farmers love their animals - you want to have the best facilities and the best technology invested in them and in you to make sure that you can keep up."

Le Cras added that she believed the dairy industry was "looking very strong at the moment" with new markets opening in Asia and a strong local market.

Blanc Pignon Dairy Farm was founded in 1942, during World War Two - 84 years ago - after Alice and Caroline's grandmother "was in a situation where she needed to protect the fields that were going to be requisitioned for soldiers' horses".

Le Cras said her grandmother broke curfew under the German Occupation to get three heifers "and we started there".

The site had "a long history of being a mixed farm" - at one point it was herding cattle and growing potatoes, asparagus and gooseberries.

She said: "We've had a real go at the diversification with some products... that have been really successful and well supported by the islands, but they're just not enough to sustain a milking herd for us.

"My grandmother worked hard for it, my mother worked hard for it, my sister and her family and I have given it a real go, but that time has maybe come."

Le Cras thanked the industry for its support, the islanders who had consumed its products and "all the staff who have worked very hard at Blanc Pignon over the years".

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