Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers (RABDF) Vice Chair Di Wastenage has been awarded with an MBE in the 2021 New Year Honours list, for her services to the UK dairy industry.

From 1 January 2021 the UK will trade with the EU as a third country. New rules for entry into the EU of certain animals and products including livestock will apply. Under the Northern Ireland Protocol, live animals moved from Great Britain into Northern Ireland will need to meet these EU requirements.

Dairy farmers were told by Farming Minister Victoria Prentis the future farming policy will deliver a better deal for them going forward.

Speaking at RABDF’s Virtual Business and Policy Conference today (Wed 4 Nov), Ms Prentis said the Common Agriculture Policy had been a comfort blanket for farmers in this country, with the largest farms receiving about 50% of the money.

Productivity in the dairy industry is not about producing as much milk as possible it is about how well the sector can turn inputs into outputs, delegates at RABDF’s Virtual Business and Policy Conference were told.

The Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers (RABDF) has taken the decision to alter the format of Dairy-Tech 2021, due to ongoing Covid-19 concerns, by instead hosting a series of online events over a fortnight from 3 February to 17 February 2021.

The dairy industry must get better at marketing jobs on farm and make the workplace more appealing in order to prevent labour shortages next year, according to a dedicated labour expert.

Speaking on The Milk Digest podcast George Gordon from specialist dairy recruiters LKL said with restrictions coming in on recruiting foreign labour from next year, the industry has got to look at ways of getting more people in the UK to consider working on farms.

Dairy farm owners and managers are being encouraged to complete a survey to highlight the issues they have when recruiting labour following an announcement by Government last month (29 Sept) that access to foreign labour would be limited.