Traditional dairy farming, the long-standing family farms, is in transition. And since it has to evolve, we want the change to be for the better and for the long term. Let’s start with the good news:
1️⃣ First. Traditional #livestockfarming is evolving, but it will not disappear. It will still be there because it accounts for most (67% in Spain) of production, and thank goodness, because it is what keeps rural areas alive in places like Asturias. Traditional livestock farming will keep growing and professionalising.
2️⃣ Second. Traditional livestock farming will need to grow in size, because that is the only way the numbers add up for livestock farmers. But its growth will be limited by the land, because the environment’s capacity to absorb this slurry is limited and the logistics to the treatment point are inefficient.
3️⃣ Third. The cost of the different types of milk production has to take into account the externalities of the value chain. If this is not passed on to the price, competition is unfair and directly affects our rural population and/or our environment. That is why our livestock farmers’ protests have an economic and moral basis.
What happens in Asturias, Galicia, Cantabria and other smallholding areas with a livestock-farming tradition? Their structure is very different from elsewhere in Spain. In Asturias, for example, the average is 43 cows (the national average is 67), but here in Asturias there are only 7 farms with more than 330 cows (and not many more), and the remaining 1,555 produce 95% of the milk.
To ease the limits that smallholding land places on the growth of farms, at Agrolinera we develop technologies that make the collection process efficient: on the one hand, by reducing logistics costs, and on the other, by optimising its value for biogas and biomethane plants.
This is how we improve the living standards of traditional livestock farming and reduce its impact on the land and the climate. Managing livestock waste is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the #evolutiontowardsruralsustainability. But this is the evolution we want and the one we are fighting for.
Traditional livestock farming: is it going to disappear? No. Never. Will farms consolidate? Yes. Quite a lot. To what extent? That will be set by the price of milk, the land and its regulations, and the ability to adapt waste management to the land at a reasonable cost, which is what we are working on…