Design

2. The Milk
Despite the widespread uses of images of cows in fields, labels on milk tell
you very little about the farms your milk comes from and the life that the cows
actually have.Traditional british dairy farms are disappearing from the land-
scape at an alarming rate, to be replaced by larger, more intensive operations
where cows are sometimes confined indoors all year round.
We have consulted with farmers to pro-
duce a simple set of standards that are
acheivable on farms, to give cows the
kind of life you would want them to have.
The free range dairy network licenses the
pasture promise logo to dairy companies
and farmers to provide you with a simple
assurance that the milk comes from cows
that enjoy the freedom to graze in fields
for at least six months of the year.
The cows are not fed a 100% grass diet but, like or-
ganic farms there is a requirement for a minumum
of 60% of the diet to be made up of forage. During
the summer months the cows graze lush green
grass and in
winter the diet is founded on grass conserved as
silage and hay.There is increasing evidence to show
that milk from grass is lower in saturated fat and
higher in healthy fats like Conjugated Linoleic Acid
and Omega 3.
‘Free range is all about freedom’

3. The Cows
It is estimated that around 300,000 of dairy cows in the U.K never go out-
side and more and more herds have only limited access to grazing. But cows
work hard for us, getting up early every day to produce milk and we think
they deserve something in return.We consider grazing to be a fundamental
natural expression for dairy cows and want to secure them the freedom to
roam in fields in the spring and summer months.
Grass is a cheap, nutritious food for dairy cows and they turn it into healthy
milk with high levels of omega 3 and other healthy fats. Keeping cows in-
doors all year round is an expensive business, which means cows are under
greater pressure to deliver high milk yields.We promote a farming system
that is not reliant on the relentless pursuit of high yields and gives cows
something more akin to the life that nature intended.
People already tell us they want to be able
to choose milk from cows in fields and we
know that freedom for cows and other farm
animals is important to them.We want
to win a fair deal for farmers, cows and
consumers. But right now, milk labels do
not tell you how much time cows spend
outdoors.You will see widespread use of
imaes and cows in fields, supermarkets
and on dairy packaging.This creates a per-
ception that all cows live the kind of life
you would expect.
‘Free range dairy is working with farmers to
maximise the amount of time cows spend
outside grazing each year’