Most Britons 'against dairy factor'

Almost two-thirds of people say they would never buy milk produced in large-scale indoor dairy sheds, according to animal welfare campaigners launching a campaign against intensive milk farming.

A survey conducted for the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) found 61% of British adults would not buy milk produced from large-scale intensive farms.

The survey by Ipsos Mori also revealed that 90% of people buy milk at least once a week and almost half (48%) of those associate it with visions of cows grazing in fields.

The campaign by WSPA aims to stop the development of factory dairy farms, which it claims are bad for the cows' health and welfare, as well as the environment and local communities.

Earlier this year, Nocton Dairies put forward a proposal to farm more than 8,000 dairy cows on a 4,000-acre site at Nocton, Lincolnshire.

Under the proposals for the massive dairy, cows would be kept indoors while they were in milk, but allowed to graze outdoors while they were not in production.

And the scheme, which the farmers involved said would produce "high-welfare, low-carbon milk", would include an anaerobic digester creating enough green energy from farm waste to power the dairy and 2,000 homes.

But it proved controversial, with opponents labelling it the equivalent of battery chicken farms for cows, and the plans were withdrawn in April.

Campaigners now expect the proposals to be resubmitted, and warn the proposed Nocton Dairy will be a "watershed" application which, if approved, will pave the way for other big, intensive dairy schemes.

The WSPA said that with the UK producing almost all its own milk, the country was in a position where it could choose how to manage dairy production. But the animal welfare charity said farmers were under pressure to intensify production, while a lack of labelling would mean shoppers would not be able to tell if they are drinking milk from "mega-dairies" or traditional farms.