Archive - Tuesday, 12 February 2002


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Eco friendly farm impresses Welsh Development Agency

A family farm has slashed its electricity bills by more than £1000 a year after adopting a series of water-saving initiatives.

John and Mair Weekes and their sons, Peter and Stephen, are using spring water to cool the milk produced by their herd of 60 Friesian cows at Dolau Llwydion, Boncath.

At the peak of production, 1,000 litres of water sourced from two wells at the 156-acre dairy, sheep and arable holding, passes through a plate cooler to chill the milk. Before this device was installed, the milk was cooled in an electric-powered bulk tank.

The saving and environmental benefits continue after the cooling process is complete because the water is drunk by the cows.

The Environment Agency is so impressed with the water-saving initiatives that it has presented the Weekes family with a special award following their commendation in its Water Efficiency Awards 2001.

Until 1976 Dolau Llwydion was supplied with mains water. During that summer's drought the supply was interrupted for periods of up to five days so Mr and Mrs Weekes decided to tap into their own spring water system. The location of the farm, rising to 950 feet above sea level, is ideally suited to maintaining good water pressure.

As the squeeze on farm incomes has increased, savings generated by the initiatives are becoming more important. "With the way things are in farming we have got to tighten up wherever possible, if we don't help ourselves no-one is going to do it for us. This sort of thing is the way forward,'' says Peter. "Water was used for cooling hundreds of years ago so in a sense we are going back to our roots, back to what nature intended.''

Clean water that the cows don't drink is used for washing down the milking parlour floor while the remainder flows into a tributary of the River Teifi.

Caption: John and Mair Weekes are presented with their special Environment Agency award at the Emlyn Arms, Newcastle Emlyn. They were pictured here with their son, Peter, NFU Wales president, Hugh Richards, and Bob Merriman, of the Environment Agency.

Picture: Western Telegraph