BBC Countryfile sparks fury as fans fume 'it's gone too far' over 'sadistic' cattle segment
Countryfile's Tom Heap explored the difficulties of farming
BBC
Several Countryfile viewers were left furious on Sunday night as Tom Heap explored one farmer's "mega farm", in which he admitted that some of the cows don't get released to a field or ever seen grass.
Presenter Tom Heap was exploring how 15 percent of local and family-run farms have disappeared, with many having to become bigger in order to stay in business.
Heap explained: "There is a traditional image of what farming looks like, small scale, family farms, livestock grazing in open fields and fresh quality food.
"Farms like that still exist all over the UK but it is becoming increasingly hard to make them work financially so there are a number of small farmers offering full-time living, and the land is shrinking.
"As some of those smaller farms sell up, medium-sized farms are left weighing up their options to diversify and find new sources of income to invest and scale up.
"Since 2005, the average size of a UK farm has increased by almost 19 percent, Fraser Jones is a third-generation dairy farmer with 5,000 beef and dairy cattle in Powis."
Tom Heap visited Fraser Jones' farm to discuss the ever-growing scale
BBC
Jones and his family have grown by buying other farms, and now have a total of nine sites. The term mega-farm is sometimes used and defined as having more than 125,000 chickens reared for meat or 2,500 pigs, 700 dairy cattle or 1,000 beef cattle.
Jones' farm meets the requirements for the term mega-farm but he disputed that his qualifies as such and noted: "Mega farm is a bit of myth, I think that has come from the states, in the UK, yes there is a lot of 1,000 to 2,000 cow units and to me, that is just a large family business.
"I see myself as a large family business if you want to stay in this industry for the long term, you need to upscale your numbers because the margins are so tight you have to have more cows so them small small margins add up to something we can live on basically."
In the background of their conversation, hundreds of cows could be seen kept in individual sections, leaving Heap to ask: "The cows that are here, do they ever see grass, put a foot in the field?"
Fraser Jones defended his reasons for not letting the cows roam free
BBC
"No, so these cows are in all year round," Jones responded before Tom jumped in and asked him: "Are you happy with that?"
He quipped: "I'm very happy with that, it gives us better control. Cows like consistency so they have a specific diet to meet all of their nutritional requirements.
"They're eating the same everyday which then results in fewer health issues, so basically to me, the welfare here is good."
Despite the farmer being at ease with the cows being sectioned off, some viewers at home were left upset by the actions, with one X user noting: "Poor cows, they look like they’re in prison… #countryfile."
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Fans were outraged that the cows were treated like "prisoners"
BBC
"Completely agree with you. What a sadistic system!" someone responded.
Another added: "#countryfile My eldest does not agree with Farms who keep their Cows and Chickens inside all the Time wrong she said, least the Farm we lived on was Old School."
Another unhappy fan quipped: "I have fond memories of walking to school in our village alongside the cows as they came back from milking #Countryfile."
"Cattle never had earrings and necklaces when I was a kid, it's gone too far! #countryfile," someone else said. (sic)
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