Our lush pastures provide the perfect diet for our dairy cows.
The climate of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is ideal for the growth of rich, natural grass. Our lush pastures provide the perfect diet for our dairy cows, with only minimal additional cereal inputs.
All additional feed inputs are subject to stringent control to ensure their safety and integrity. DAERA implements 30 separate pieces of EU and UK legislation relating to both home grown and imported animal feeds used in feed to supplement the diet of our dairy cows.
This involves inspection of establishments producing and marketing animal feeds and feed ingredients, checks on imports of animal feed and feed ingredients and inspection of on–farm facilities for production of animal feeds (home–mixers), to ensure compliance with all EU and UK standards.
All imported animal feed material is additionally subjected to a comprehensive and rigorous testing programme developed by the Institute for Global Food Security at Queen’s University, Belfast and the Northern Ireland Grain Trade Association.
This scheme, Food Fortress Feed Assurance, is the most comprehensive program of animal feed monitoring anywhere in the world. It is based on an extensive risk analysis of all potential contaminants involving a strategic sampling and testing program covering imported materials and finished feeds. This helps ensure the production of safe animal feed and provides the world’s growing population with a sustainable, safe and secure supply of high quality food.
The greatly enhanced level of quality assurance across the supply chain gives the United Kingdom industry a world leading position in the field of feed assurance, and provides our customers with the confidence that dairy products from the United Kingdom are made to the highest possible standards of safety and integrity.