MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Falklands' dairy doubles herd; makes yogurt & Che cheese

Kevin demonstrates the new milking parlor's capabilities to Sarah Clements of SeAled PR

At the Falkland Islands Stanley Dairy, progress can be measured by the time spent milking the cows. Two years ago when New Zealander Kevin Reynolds arrived with his family to take on the business, his day began before 6am and milking could take anything up to two hours, depending on the mood of the equipment and the 14 cows.

Forty-five animals are now milked and it is all over and done with in half an hour, although the clean up afterwards and processing is still a time consuming task, taking up to three hours. With much appreciated help from some Royal Engineers - in the Islands on Exercise Kelp Fire – and members of the Fusiliers in their spare time, Kevin now has a modern milking parlor which allows him to milk 20 cows at a time. A huge improvement he said, on the typical 1940s design incorporated into the shed which was constructed in the 1980s. With pasteurization now a part of the preparation process, visitors to the dairy are restricted with strict health and contamination guidelines in place. The dairy has been approved by and is now operating to EU standards. The dairy is unusual in that the milking and processing take place on the same farm; dairy farms typically send their daily yield to a plant to be processed, therefore only having responsibility for milking the cows. The downside to that arrangement is that the milk is several days old by the time it is poured on to your morning cereals. Milk from the Stanley Dairy is delivered to customers and retail outlets on the same day, a rare situation these days, said Kevin. Two years on, the cow man from Naroggin, Western Australia, is still enjoying the challenge the dairy presents and in particular the Falklands climate. "Without the heat there are no flies - it's great," he said. "It can sometimes seem like little has been achieved, but when we stop and take stock, progress has been good," he added. "The herd is double the size, we've created a Falklands cheese called Che Cheese and sales of yoghurt have progressed well" Kevin said, adding that sales had been helped by new packaging. A problem with getting the new milk cartons sealed meant that some have been leaking which was not ideal, Kevin said, but he was confident that the problem had been solved and all cartons were now individually checked before leaving the farm. There had been no case of Listeria for two years, Kevin proudly acknowledged with regular testing still carried out by the medical department. Longevity testing is also carried out at the dairy with milk keeping fresh for up to three weeks in the right conditions. Making use of a waste product, fish fertilizer has been produced through rotting down bait donated by local fishing company Polar Ltd over a period of four to five months. This was spread in a paddock which produced good quality clover feed for the cows: "It worked well, but you didn't want to go near the paddock for a few days after spreading it" Kevin warned. The poultry side of the business has not developed at the same rate and Kevin was quick to put this down to bad management. He had been concentrating on getting the dairy construction works done and then a burst pipe above a batch of new imported chicks, resulted in a heavy loss. In the future it is hoped to buy chicks locally and change the breed so that they can be used for meat at the end of their egg-producing life. There are now 18 paddocks to the front of the dairy all equipped with water troughs, gravity fed with spring water for the cows. Products from the dairy have been well received by some of the smaller cruise ships; although often the quantities required at short notice cannot be met. "We've had to change some of the recipes to suit their requirements, as we don't use preservatives and they need produce to keep for long periods of time," Kevin explained. Further development of the business will involve supplying Mount Pleasant, Kevin said, adding that to date the Ministry of Defence had been supportive and agreed that quantities could be increased as production built up. Penguin News