THE REVOLUTIONARY practices of a Stroud dairy has earned the ethical farm a spot on an upcoming episode of Countryfile.
One of the show's presenters, Helen Skelton, and a film crew spent Thursday at Stroud Micro Dairy for a Countryfile episode on Gloucestershire due to air on February 24.
Keeping calves with their mothers was one of the aspects of the dairy that caught the show's attention.
"For us it just sits more comfortably. It made sense from an ethical point of view," explained Alice Planel from the dairy, which is one of only a few in the UK that does this.
"The calves are very healthy as a result. But it's also challenging, we need a lot of infrastructure because calves have an amazing disregard for fencing.
"We often find them in the cabbage patch. Sometimes the mum's take them to a little spot to hide them and forget where they left them!"
The other draw for Countryfile was the dairy's community membership model.
Alice continued: "It means there is a direct link between the community and farmers. Families buy shares in us and we provide the milk.
"It's really important to us for the community to be empowered and feel part of the story of where their food comes from."
Find out more about the dairy by reading our feature just as it first began selling milk in 2017: bit.ly/2By8vMa
Some of the dairy's younger stock: Rocket, Erme and Buddha
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