Farm Diary July 8 2009

THE glorious weather continues, but again we missed the rain apart from a little one night last week.

I am just getting a little concerned about the grass, but as I write this it has started raining!

The dirty water irrigation continues, and as the weather is so hot, George has the tractor doors and windows open as he crawls up and down the field in his shorts, getting as much rays as possible!

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Last week in a sheltered field he was attacked by horseflies all day, as they were presumably attracted by the water. This kept him alert and he now appreciates a little breeze!

The Germans have gone home for a holiday. I'm getting used to this now, and I treat each week as it comes, taking the presence of German workers as a genuine surprise and a delight!

Work is progressing and we await the arrival of the specialist electricians, who will bring the 'nerve-centre' with them, and carry out the equivalent to 'brain surgery' on the site; connecting up the various multitudes of cables to the control room.

The pipe-work is almost complete, but a few missing items are holding us up from being able to fill in the trenches. In the meantime we are still filling the first tank and we are now ready for the 'burger-van'; this is a giant version of a domestic boiler.

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Until we can start the engine on the bio-plant, an outside source is needed to heat the water which warms up the towers which gets the bacterial activity in the slurry going. I have been warned that this boiler uses more than a drop of diesel!

BT called last week to see where the 'ISN' line needs to go. This is a very high quality line which is used in outside recording

studios for quality of sound etc: We need it in our control room, so that Bio-Gas Nord can monitor our production performance from Germany, and assist with diagnosis if necessary.

They will be able to look at the operation and advise on change of 'diet' for the plant, or trouble-shoot if we have a problem. They monitor many plant in Germany in this way, and hopefully we will not provide much more of a challenge.

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I visited Wiseman Dairies Southwater factory last week. I had an appointment to meet Robert Wiseman, and took the opportunity to have a guided tour of the facility.

This is the latest 'state of the art' processing plant to be built by the company at a cost of over 100m. The milk is delivered by tankers into the unloading bay, and pumped into the large storage vats. From the computerized control room, the milk can be selected from any vat and pumped into the processing plant where all the cream is removed, before then being put back in at precisely the correct amount (1%, 2% or 3.5%).

The milk is then pasturised and homogenized (to prevent the cream rising to the top), before being sent to the filling line.

Plastic granules are delivered to the factory, where they produce their own milk cartons on site.

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The plastic is melted and passes through a mould, blown into a plastic bottle, pressure tested, photographed for any defect, before being sent to the filling line.

These bottles are produced at an amazing rate, but a day's worth is always in stock in case of breakdowns. The poly-bottle is then sleeved by a machine, which carries the label and all relevant information; this machine runs a fraction faster then the filling carousel so that there is never a moment where the filling line is not operating at full speed.

Incredibly, the filling carousel fills poly-bottles at a rate of 400 a minute, and the technology involved is impressive.

Watching the screw top caps being put on after filling at 400 a minute is mesmerizing.

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On the wall is a board, where each team is assessed each hour. A target is set, the last hour's production is written alongside with any technical or planned changes noted.

The manager then writes his comments alongside indicating whether the last hour's performance has been satisfactory, excellent or inadequate. This is a motivational tool, but also means that any glitches are picked up within an hour or less.

The plant runs 24 hours a day, and when completed (starting phase 2 of 3 in total now), will poly-bottle 370m litres of milk a year! Robert Wiseman is justifiably very proud of this world class plant, which is the first 'dry floor' factory I have seen, where any spillage is collected in stainless steel, and sent to the 2m water treatment plant alongside. Impressive.

The Board of young dairy farmers I have put together at the NFU in order to introduce future leaders to the political work we do, went to Brussels for two days last week.

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Apart from a major incident at the Eurostar train station in St Pancras, they had a good time, meeting our staff at the Brussels NFU office and after a thorough briefing, visiting the European Parliament and meeting various people from the Commission.

The security alarm was raised after one of the lads was identified as a 'shoe-bomber' in the train station! He had dropped his phone as he traveled to London, and was unlucky enough for it to break up on impact with the pavement.

The various bits were unceremoniously picked up and thrown into the suitcase, to be looked at later.

Unfortunately, the printed circuit found its way into his shoe (also in the suitcase); this set the luggage 'X ray' machine into orbit and a full scale 'terrorist alert' practice for the staff! An hour later a chastened lad from up north ran for the train with minutes to spare.

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