


The Ethical Journey So Far
Since October 2016 our calves have stayed with their mothers for 5 to 6 months. We still milk them in that period, but only once a day.
We are still at the early stages of The Ethical Dairy project, but our new approach to dairy farming has already led to huge reductions in the use of antibiotics, increases in biodiversity and healthier, happier cows. Compared to an average dairy farm, already The Ethical Dairy has:
- Cut greenhouse gas emissions by more than half
- Reduced energy use by more than half
- Cut antibiotic use by 90%
- Cut agro-chemical use by 90%
- Doubled the productive life of cows
- Increased our farm biodiversity five-fold
- Increased the net amount of food in our food system by 80%
- Exceeded the highest standards of animal welfare
We were delighted to publish 25 years of soil organic carbon data in early 2021 which shows that our farm is carbon negative, and in fact is sequestering substantially higher levels of carbon than commercial forestry could achieve. We were pleased to speak at a number of events, including several connected with COP26, and we were delighted to be awarded an Outstanding Achievement award at Vibes, Scotland's Environment Business Awards in late 2021.
The Ethical Dairy has been supported in its journey by many individuals through our crowdfunding campaign in the autumn of 2018, and by public funding, such as Dumfries and Galloway LEADER which is helping us to attend trade shows, events, and to market and promote our products. We are also grateful for support from the Food Processing, Manufacturing and Cooperation grant which has supported the development of our new cheese dairy.
We hope you enjoy our cheese and we thank you for your support of The Ethical Dairy.