The Family Farm That's Out to Prove Small Is Bountiful ; Continuing Our Food in the Landscape Series, Martin Hesp has Been Looking at the Dairy Industry Both Large and Small in Recent Days - but the Experience That Will Stay with Him Is a Day Out On a Traditional Dairy Farm in South Devon

Summary

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THE title of this series can take on many guises. Let's take the tale of two Devon dairies - at first glance so vastly different are they that mentioning them in the same breath seems somehow crazy. One represents 1,600 farms with countless cows on countless acres - the other supports just one family with 39 cows on 150 acres.

The produce of the first finds it way on to supermarket shelves across the nation and even as far afield as China. The produce of the second reaches a handful of shops within a few miles of the farm in the South Hams.

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Extract

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The Family Farm That's Out to Prove Small Is Bountiful ; Continuing Our Food in the Landscape Series, Martin Hesp has Been Looking at the Dairy Industry Both Large and Small in Recent Days - but the Experience That Will Stay with Him Is a Day Out On a Traditional Dairy Farm in South Devon

And yet I was visiting both dairies for this newspaper recently because they have exactly the same underlying story to tell. The gigantic factory and the tiny farm shed operation are both adding value to that most basic of products: milk.

At Taw Valley Creamery in North Tawton, the massive farmer co- operative Milk Link was opening its Innovations Centre, where a team of highly qualified white coated food technicians will be developing ways of creating new products based on the magical white liquid.

In vast gleaming spotless rooms that looked like la...

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