4 minute read
WORLD DAIRYING
The dairy farming industry on the Faroe Islands might well be classed as small, but it is still vital for the country’s economy. Chris McCullough reports. Importance of milking cows
With just over 1,140 dairy cows on 16 farms producing milk for 53,800 people, the dairy industry on the Faroe Islands is quite a vital sector.
Looking at a map, the Faroes are located halfway between Iceland and Norway, north west of Scotland, and extend to 1,400sq.km in size.
Faroe Islands is one of the three constituent countries which form the Kingdom of Denmark, along with Denmark and Greenland.
Aside from the shing industry there, which is by far the biggest in terms of food production, dairying, sheep farming and vegetable growing, are the main agricultural sectors.
Due to challenging climatic conditions, soil types and eld structures, most of the dairy cows on the Faroes are kept indoors.
One of the more modern farms is owned by business partners Roi Absalonsen, Nils Absalonsen and Esmar Sorensen, based at Vioareioi, in the north of the island.
Dairying has been a traditional enterprise on this farm for hundreds of years, but as Roi says, there have been major changes there in recent years.
Roi says: “We milk 120 cows which are yielding 32 litres per day on average at 4.2% bu erfat and 3.45% protein.
Processor
“ e milk is sold to MBM, the only dairy processor on the Faroe Islands. Our current price we receive for the milk is about seven Danish Krones or 94 euro cents per litre.
“Cows are being milked an average of 2.8 times per day through our two DeLaval VMS300 robots, with 60 cows grouped to each robot.”
Looking back at the history of the farm’s infrastructure, Roi’s grandad
The farm is situated on the right of the picture, just below Kap Enniberg on the north of the island. Roi Absalonsen (left) owns the farm with business partners Esmar Sorensen (right) and Nils Absalonsen.
built a new barn there in 1980. Roi’s uncle and business partner Nils took over the farm in 1987 and continued to milk cows.
However, with a restructured ownership, the trio decided to heavily invest in the farm and built a new barn for the cows in 2019. at was not the only investment required though, as extra quota needed to be purchased to increase cow numbers.
Roi says: “In total, we have about 60 hectares here on our farm and we manage to buy or rent another 5ha each year.
“Our cows are kept indoors all year long, but youngstock graze outdoors during summer from June to September.
“Nils, Esmar and myself rst drew up the plans to build a new barn in 2013. At that time, Nils had 212,000 litres of quota, so we bought another 320,000 litres that same year.
“With more quota purchased in 2019, we now have a total of 1.3 million litres to work with each year.”
Most of the cows in the herd are Holstein Friesians, plus there are a number of Norwegian Red cows. Arti cial insemindation is used across the herd. e Faroe Islands has a quite mild climate, with temperatures dropping to 3degC or 4degC in winter. Summer days are mostly overcast with temperatures never really ge ing
Dairy industry in the Faroe Islands
rThe Faroe Islands are almost self-sufficient in dairy products, with the exception of cheese rOver the past 10 years, milk production on the islands has increased by 10%, but the number of farms including dairy cattle has fallen from 28 farms in 2012 to 16 farms in 2021 rStatistics show that in 2012, the Faroe Islands produced 6.8 million litres of milk from 1,138 cows; this compares to 7.5m litres produced from 1,147 cows in 2021 rDue to advances in breeding, the average yield has also increased from 6,000 litres per cow in 2012 to 6,600 litres in 2021
above 15degC and the island records about 210 rainy or snowy days per year.
Soils
With this in mind, dairy farmers tend to keep their cows in during the year to avoid damaging the soils.
Forage is transported into the cow barn all summer and silage is fed in winter via a robotic feeding system.
Roi says: “We feed cows with a robotic TKS system, which is a Norwegian system. e robot is set to feed the cows eight to 10 times per day. ey are being fed grass and silage as well as mash from the local brewery, plus concentrated feed.”
One of the main problems associated with dairy farming on the Faroe Islands is the lack of a slaughterhouse, therefore there is nowhere to kill cull cows.
Roi says: “This is a job we must take on ourselves. We slaughter older cows ourselves and sell the meat to the public, just like door to door selling. It is a tedious task, but it has to be done.”
Looking to the future, Roi and his business partners have a goal to expand their milk production keeping a close eye on new technology.
Investment
He says: “We have invested heavily to reduce labour in the new barn with the milking robots and the robotic feeding system. At the moment we have ca le in a barn in a di erent location, so in the future we would like to extend the barn so we can house all ca le under one roof.”
Cows are fed up to 10 times per day via a robotic feeder.
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