Milk business turns sour

10:17am Tuesday 6th May 2008

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A PRESTWOOD family which has run a dairy since 1924 has been forced to stop producing milk.

Spiralling costs have forced the owners of the farm to shut their dairy and the milk silo is now redundant.

Last week, the eight tonne silo had to be lifted by crane through a hole which was cut in the roof of the farm.

A giant crane hoisted the 20ft tall and 11 ft wide vat and carefully maneouvered it out through the top of the barn in a major operation that took several hours.

The Davis family has run its farming business, Wren Davis Ltd, from the 18th century Collings Hanger Farm in Prestwood since 1924. The silo held up to 15,000 gallons of milk it produced.

Today, the business is run by brothers David and Rex and David's two daughters Wendy and Virginia.

But spiralling costs caused by fuel shortage, increasing health and safety legislation and red tape have forced the Davis family to close down its dairy operation and continue as a beef farm.

David, 82, said: "We've stopped bottling milk and we're now going to have to buy milk in. We will just be a milk distributor. We had to sell off what we could, so the silo is going to a farm in Acton and they hired people to come and take it away.

"We've been having to pay for so many extra things that we're having to sell equipment off to make something back.

"Years ago we used to sell milk in glass bottles. They were returnable and reusable. Nowadays they use plastic cartons for everything and the price of plastic is going up every week. That's where all the oil fuel is going - that's why we've got this petrol shortage.

"We've been spending so much more that we couldn't afford to keep going."

Twenty years ago when the silo arrived at the Davis' farm, it was delivered by a crane and the barn was built up around it.

Contractors had to cut a square hole in the building's roof, carefully rock the silo off its base and then lift it up, over and out before it was loaded onto a lorry to be taken to its new home.