Lucy's Big Ride, Day VI

Yesterday Lucy rode nearly 80 miles from Shrewsbury to Warrington, the biggest day so far! Oh, how your legs must hurt Lucy! She looks pretty happy here though, doesn't she?

Anyway, we've spoken a lot about farms in the last few posts and it seems fitting to mention what could potentially be a major change for the UK farming industry in the near future: Super Farms. Now I know that sounds really cool and of course your mind is already filling with images of caped dairy cows and vegetables that bring about world peace, but in reality super farms are quite different. 

The UK farming industry is in a spot of bother because, in case you haven't noticed, we now have over 60 million people living on our small island, with less and less space left to farm on. To keep food prices stable and levels of production in line with our population, National Farmers Union president Peter Kendall recently stated we need to move away from traditional animal farming and into super massive animal farming. The average cattle farm in the UK has between 100 and 150 cattle, whereas in the US - where super farms are commonplace - thousands of cattle can be found on a single farm. It would definitely help drive food prices down... but is it right?

There's a whole host of environmental issues to consider. Having thousands of animals together in one area causes huge water and land pollution problems, how would local ecosystems cope? What happens to the small-hold local farmer? Is that job going out the window? And what about animal welfare? Being pressed into a small place with thousands of others is no way to live, be you human, cow or pig. What do you think?