Dairy farming in the Azores

MarkB_MI · May 6, 2018

My wife and I recently finished a trip to Portugal, including the Azores and Madeira. I was fascinated by the Azorean dairy industry. Although the Azores comprise only three percent of the land area of Portugal, they produce a whopping 30 percent of Portugal's milk. This figure is even more astounding when you consider that the Azores are 850 miles west of the Portuguese mainland.

Now for the really interesting part: During our entire stay on the island of Sao Miguel, I did not see a single American-style dairy barn. In fact the closest thing to an actual milk parlor we saw was the shed in the picture below. Dairy cattle are kept on small pastures of around five to ten acres, and the farmer brings his milking machines to the pasture in trailers like the one in the picture. He then hauls the milk to a local collection facility or directly to a nearby processing plant.

Most of the pastures are impossibly steep. That's the Atlantic Ocean in the background, several hundred feet below.

Since the pastures are small, it's necessary to move the cows regularly. There aren't a lot of roads, so it's common to see cattle herded on major highways as you see in the second picture.

Bruce from Can. · May 6, 2018

Year around grazing, is part of the advantage, and there is most certainly no competition from farmers wanting to grow row crops on this land. I would venture a guess that a good part of these dairy farmers income comes from the government in the form of a de-cupelled subidy. You see tourism is a large part of the GDP for countries like Portugal, and it is very important that when folks like you go to visit, that you can see these beautiful green hill sides, with idiotic views of cattle grazing,etc. That?s why you go to see the beauty. Wouldn?t be so beautiful if it was just a over grown mess. So they literally pay their farmers money to graze the cows, to maintain the splender of the view. This is not a commercially viable way to produce milk. Europe is a wash in milk, just as the USA is. What you have wittiness is done as part of a tourist attraction in truth. You have been misled.

rrlund · May 6, 2018

That reminds me of stories I used to hear about an old neighbor here. He lived right on the edge of town,but he had a 40 a quarter mile north of town and another one a quarter mile west,behind another farm right across the road from his house. They say he had a shack on each 40 where he'd milk cows during the summer. Somebody was telling one time about driving by in a driving rain and he was all hunkered down in one of those shacks with rain blowing in the sides,milking a cow by hand for all he was worth. lol

Dean · May 6, 2018

Fascinating, Mark.

Looks like the folks in the Azores have adapted well to their conditions.

Dean

Traditional Farmer · May 6, 2018

Pretty much the way we used to do our milk cows years ago,had a Summer pasture with an open shed to milk them.Looks like a great life for man and beast.

Traditional Farmer · May 6, 2018

Better than North America where the farmers get laws passed so people can't see what actually goes on,on their farms.

john in la · May 6, 2018

"idiotic views of cattle grazing"

LOL!!!!!!!!!!

greg oliver · May 6, 2018

Bruce, My milk inspectors would have a heart attack if they saw that operation! Refrigeration was always a key component to my operation as well as running water! Maybe they have Ultra pasteurization, lol.

Bruce from Can. · May 6, 2018

Good old spell check,lol. Was supposed to be" Idyllic views ".

Bruce from Can. · May 6, 2018

My guess all of this milk is made into cheese. With no refrigeration visible in the picture , I would believe the bacteria load in that milk would never make grade A standard .

WGM · May 6, 2018

Specifics please.

MarkB_MI · May 6, 2018

> What you have wittiness [sic] is done as part of a tourist attraction in truth. You have been misled.

Bruce, I don't doubt that Portuguese agriculture is subsidized, just as American and Canadian farmers are subsidized. But I think you have the relationship between the Azorean tourism and dairy industries backwards.

First off, although tourism is a significant part of their economy, it's relatively small compared to agriculture. And the dairy industry is, I think, the single largest sector within agriculture.

Also, although the Azorean dairy farms may be quaint, their dairy processing plants are anything but. There's a lot of them, they're big and they appear to be very modern. If the purpose of dairy farming is to create a bucolic facade for the benefit of gullible tourists, they could simply pay the farmers to dump their milk on the ground. Instead, they produce a lot of products that are shipped to the mainland. Where they seem to have no problem competing with the rest of the EU.

MarkB_MI · May 6, 2018

> Bruce, My milk inspectors would have a heart attack if they saw that operation! Refrigeration was always a key component to my operation as well as running water! Maybe they have Ultra pasteurization, lol.

Milk isn't stored on site. It's immediately hauled to local transfer points, which presumably have refrigeration.

Most of the milk is processed to make cheese and other products. If any whole milk is shipped to the mainland, it would certainly be ultra-pasteurized. Not only does ultra-pasteurization facilitate transporting milk over a thousand miles of the Atlantic Ocean, but ultra-pasteurized milk is what's normally sold in European stores.

Traditional Farmer · May 6, 2018

Several states have passed laws prohibiting the filming of what goes on at farming operations.One of the laws was in the news not too long ago being thrown out by the courts.

Dick · May 6, 2018

I've heard it is the same in Switzerland. Small dairy farmers get s subsidy from the government to farm on a small scale..
Anyone know about this?

Dick

Dick · May 6, 2018

I watch a lot of videos on YouTube on dairying in Central and South America and it is the same there. They have a small shed to milk either by hand or with a machine, then pour their milk into milk cans and transport the cans of milk to a collection station, usually loaded on a horse. They sometimes walk several miles twice a day to do their milking as the pastures are not where they live. It's very interesting to see and most of the videos are in Spanish..
Dick

Traditional Farmer · May 6, 2018

Yep and I'll bet that people got milk from cows for many centuries before some folks decided that they needed to spend thousand$ and thousand$ in a place to milk a few cows.

Philip d · May 6, 2018

Very interesting,the cows look good

Ultradog MN · May 6, 2018

Interesting post Mark.
Thanks.
How was the food?

oldtanker · May 6, 2018

Kinda funny but for some reason we tend to think if you ain't doing something our way you must be doing it wrong.

Europeans do some of the same things we do while some stuff they do their own way. There, up to and including the early 90's the Germans were big on feeding cows "green chop". They would cut with a self loading setup, fresh green hay and feed it to the livestock each day during the growing season. Was interesting to see.

In fact I saw German farmers pushing 2 wheeled tanks to dairy collection points right up through the late 80's.

As far as foreign countries and subsidies? Who cares. It's their country. If they want to pay subsidies that is none of our business. Ain't none of their business if we do it.

Rick

MarkB_MI · May 7, 2018

> How was the food?

The food in general was very good. However, my wife's brother and sister had a bad experience when they made the mistake of ordering cod. Apparently "cod" in the Azores means dried, salted cod that's been soaked in water to rehydrate it. It was salty and undercooked. They couldn't eat it!

Traditional Farmer · May 7, 2018

Sounds a lot like the salted Herring that stores used sell out of barrels.

Bruce from Can. · May 7, 2018

The little Portuguese grocery stores in Toronto sell that dried cod. They call it Bacala. Stuff is as hard as a board when they buy it, and it does have a strong smell. My wife went to school with many Portuguese kids. We were invited to several weddings, and my wife was a bridesmaid at one wedding. Now my wife is not Portuguese, and cannot speak the language, and most of the proceedings took place in Portuguese. The food , the music, all true to the Portuguese culture. A real eye opener for a 19 year old farm boy at the first wedding, but it was all very nice and we had a great time.

Traditional Farmer · May 7, 2018

Subsidies can be the business of other countries if they affect the trade agreements.Canada's system of keeping dairy products price high by creating an artificial shortage and then
putting up to a 200% tariff on US dairy products is a violation of the NAFTA agreement with the US and Mexico.

Dairy farming in the Azores

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Similar threads