What's going on "down on the farm" - a regular update of day-to-day management issues and our hopes for the future. This week, the cattle enjoy a little early spring sunshine, the pigs are eating us out of house and home and demand increases for "welfare-friendly" chicken
FAI Farms will be working on a five-year project funded by the Tubney Charitable Trust to develop and test commercially a genetic selection process which will lead to a new breed of broiler chicken which meets the requirement of the organic and free range markets and enables a more relaxed system of barn production...
There is an alternative to intensive farming, says FAI director Roland Bonney. Stick to the three Es of environment, economics and ethics to produce food which is sustainable and provides for the welfare of the animal as well as the welfare of the planet.
Bristol Veterinary School is planning to build a new dairy farm to replace the existing college farm, and has reached agreement in principle that the new unit will be run by FAI Farms with the aim of transforming it into a fully commercial unit and a centre of European excellence.
Sustainability is at the core of FAI's activity and, in any food chain, the biggest opportunities and challenges lie at the agriculture level - because farming is recognised to be the biggest single contributor of greenhouse gases, says Roland Bonney, director of FAI.
