Offering finest meat from a happy herd

9:36am Thursday 2nd October 2008

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We were walking through lush grass towards a magnificent sucking herd of Aberdeen Angus cattle. Not a single creature moved as we approached; only a red kite flying overhead disturbed the scene. These beautiful creatures remained calm and comfortable and continued grazing despite our presence.

Bob Waller, the technical manager for Freedom Food, smiled. “Now that’s what I call a contented herd,” he said. He went on to explain that an animal’s reaction to advancing humans says a great deal about their condition.

"We call it flight distance. The closer to them they allow us to get, the better they are. If they flee the moment they spot us, they are not happy. This herd is happy,” he added with satisfaction, as he pointed out a cow with her calf and the bull that had sired it, grazing together as a family. It was indeed a delightful sight.

I was visiting White Pond Farm, on the edge of the Chilterns in Stonor Valley, which has been farmed by the Stracey family since 1937. Once part of the Stonor estate, this fertile 520-acre farm rears Aberdeen Angus cattle, some of which have been crossed with Belgian Blue. There are a few Herefords here, too.

It’s such a picturesque farm, with a red brick and flint stone farmhouse dating back to 1698, that it’s frequently used as a backdrop for television shows such as The Midsomer Murders and even the Bond movie The Living Daylights.

Simon Stracey and his 30-year-old daughter Tora, a graduate from the Seale Hayne Agricultural University, Plymouth, farm it now with the help of 75-year-old farmhand Ken, who has worked on the farm throughout his working life. Tora’s mother, Lindy Stracey, makes her invaluable contribution by looking after the converted cowshed cottages that are let to holidaymakers, and ensuring that there’s a hot meal on the table when her husband and daughter finish a shift. This is four-meal-a-day family, which starts eating at dawn with a full English breakfast. They believe that good home-cooked food is essential if they are to put in the hours required of them to keep the farm running smoothly.

Until 2003, more than 100 Friesian cows could be seen strolling through the pastures, but the poor state of the milk market convinced the Stracey family to replace the dairy herd with a beef sucker herd. It’s a decision that the family do not regret for a moment. Ironically, they now make more out of the holiday cottage lets than they ever did with the dairy herd. Besides, now they are free from the arduous daily milking routine, they have more time to devote to the arable side of the farm and their beef herds. The 90 acres of wheat they have just harvested goes to make biscuits, but the 35 acres of beans and 80 acres of barley are kept to fatten their cattle, which minimises their feed bills.

I was walking the farm at the invitation of Freedom Food, which was set up by the RSPCA in 1994, with the aim of improving the lives of as many farm animals as possible. You will find the Freedom Food’s blue and white mark on meat, poultry, salmon, dairy and egg products from farm animals. It indicates that the food has been reared to the RSPCA’s strict, but achievable, set of farm animal welfare standards. These are based on the concept of five freedoms — freedom from fear and distress, freedom from hunger and thirst, freedom from discomfort, frredom to express normal behaviour, and freedom from pain, injury and disease.

To achieve these freedoms, there are rules that must be adhered to. For example, cattle drink equivalent to a bath tub of water a day. Not only should sufficient water be available, but no member of the herd should be expected to walk more than 250m to access it. Bull pens must be sited in a position that enables the bull sight, sound and odour of other cattle and general farm activity.

Bob said these goals were easy to achieve and added that he wished more people shopping for beef could see the ideal surroundings that farms such as White Pond provided for their livestock.

“Sadly, there are still a great number of people who don’t know where their food comes from, or the lengths farmers such as the Stacey family go to to ensure that the comfort and welfare of their herds are of the highest standard.

“When I inspect a farm that has applied to join the scheme, I look at stocking densities, the availability of water and feed. There must be shelter such as mature trees within the paddocks and an active veterinary health plan must be in place."

All farms are inspected annually. Regular tractability checks are also carried out from supermarket shelf right back to the farm, to ensure that everyone involved in producing Freedom Food products has been approved by the scheme.

Tora is in charge of the cattle and she loves her herds. These include 65 suckler cows which produce 65 calves a year. In total there are at least 360 head of cattle on the farm at any one time.

“They are with us from birth to slaughter, which is another requirement laid down by Freedom Food,” she said proudly.

Her happiest moment comes when the cattle are turned out into the fields after being sheltered in the sheds during the winter.

'Watching them dance with joy when they are let out is a remarkable experience. They really do leap around with the sheer excitement of being let out.”

While the farm does not have a shop as such, you can buy White Pond beef, which has been hung for three weeks to ensure tenderness, by telephoning 01491 638224.