A dairy cow has had a QR code spray painted on its back to promote the UK dairy industry.
The QR code, which is a type of souped-up barcode, can be scanned by smartphones or other specialist readers and directs users to a blog which records the cow’s daily routine.
Somerby dairy farmer Jane Barnes said she’d had the wacky idea to highlight dairy farming challenges and the reduction in the number of sons who were following their fathers into the farming trade.
“We had this wacky idea to put a code on one of our cows,
“When people are walking on our farm… they can get their iPhone and zap the cow in question,”
The QR code links to the ‘This is Dairy Farming’ website, where the cow’s life can be followed.
The barcode is sprayed onto the cow using a stencil and animal friendly spray paint. Mrs Barnes continued:
“We used a can of white spray paint that is animal user friendly, so it is not going to harm her in any way, and sprayed it on using a stencil,
“There are so few of us in the country now, less than 11,000 dairy farmers in England and Wales. People don’t really know what we do or how we produce milk.”
“If we don’t look after our dairy farmers… we are not going to be able to see dairy cows grazing in our beautiful English countryside and we are going to be reliant on imported milk.”
Mrs Barnes runs a 120 cow dairy farm with her husband which supplies milk to local dairies which produce Stilton cheese.