A Dairy Story: the Scottish film that asks why newborn calves are separated from their mothers.

A Dairy Story captures the Finlays’ pioneering experiment in cow‑with‑calf dairying, revealing how welfare, ecology and resilience can reshape dairy farming and how one woman’s legacy helped drive the change.  

A Dairy Story is a Scottish documentary that explores how keeping calves with cows at The Ethical Dairy holds the potential to change the future of dairy farming. The film was born from a simple, poignant question asked repeatedly by visitors to Rainton Farm, now better known as The Ethical Dairy in Dumfries and Galloway:

Why are newborn calves separated from their mothers?

For decades, the dairy industry’s answer has been an unequivocal yes, driven by the commercial argument that feeding calves their mothers’ milk is an inefficient use of a valuable product. Joanna Blythman writes of Holstein cows in her 2012 book What to Eat: 

“On some of the most ‘productive’ farms, these cows are managed so that they lactate for ten months of the year. They are kept in individual cubicles, often on slatted metal or concrete floors (to make cleaning easier) and only go out briefly, even in summertime, their only exercise being walking to and from the milking parlour.”

David and Wilma Finlay, however, paused and wondered if things could be done differently; a significant challenge for what is now the UK’s largest cow‑with‑calf dairy. What they achieved and what this film documents challenges long‑held industry norms.

The film arrives at a moment when dairy farms in Great Britain have fallen below 7,000 for the first time, with many farmers receiving prices below the cost of production. Rainton Farm, however, represents a small but growing movement exploring systems that prioritise animal sentience, environmental regeneration and long‑term resilience. David Finlay now shares his knowledge freely with farmers interested in cow‑with‑calf models.

A Dairy Story follows David and Wilma’s journey and began its UK cinema run at the Cameo in Edinburgh with a special screening on 4 August. The film is a portrait, with striking bucolic cinematography, of a farm in transition where happy bovines frolic through clover fields.  Planning for a regenerative, high‑welfare model began in 2008. The farm has been organic since the 1990s, and although a financially disastrous pilot in 2012 nearly ended the experiment, the Finlays committed fully in late 2016, introducing the cow‑with‑calf system across their 130‑strong herd.

“It sounds like a small change,” says David Finlay, “but that one thing, leaving the calves with their mother, changes absolutely everything.”

The film carries heart breaking freight too, because as filming began, Wilma Finlay was diagnosed with cancer, giving the project urgency and poignancy. She died in 2025, and the documentary now stands as part of her pioneering legacy and a record of the change she set in motion. There is also a paperback. 

LR: Wilma Finday, Charles Ellett, David Findlay

At the Edinburgh screening, a panel included David Finlay; Charles Ellett, dairy manager at The Ethical Dairy; Peter Stevenson, Chief Policy Advisor at Compassion in World Farming; and Charlie Buchanan‑Smith of The Free Company in Balerno. 

What the film and discussion made clear is that although the system was started for animal welfare reasons, it has also had some commercial success. Charles Ellett had actually left the industry because of personal stress caused by witnessing the separation system, and the distress of the cows. His testimony brings into sharp relief how custodians of our livestock can be emotionally affected. Then David invited him for a cuppa and revealed his and Wilma’s plans.

The cow‑with‑calf system sits within a wider diversification strategy that has allowed Rainton Farm to remain commercially viable while doing something the industry long considered impossible. Milk production initially dropped when calves stayed with their mothers, but as the herd adapted, lactation increased and overall output rose, a counterintuitive gain that challenges assumptions about efficiency. Yet milk is only part of the picture. The farm’s organic beef, raw‑milk cheeses, lamb, agritourism, education programmes and food events create multiple income streams that cushion the farm from the volatility of dairy markets. But the film shows how a regenerative system becomes economically resilient when paired with diversification, strong branding and a willingness to rethink what a dairy farm can be.

Furthermore, the film shows that the calves and cows are properly pasture fed and the panel noted that labelling beef as grass-fed can mean merely that the herd eats some grass. At the Ethical Dairy cows graze on diverse pastures, turn the soil, and make it more carbon rich. Joanna Blythman says in What to Eat: 

“Organic cows graze on organic land that has not been treated with fertilizer or pesticides and great emphasis is put on keeping them on rich pasture that contains diverse types of grass, clovers, flowers and herbs because this helps keep cows healthy and makes for better, more nutritious milk.”

At L’Escargot Bleu, owned by Fred Berkmiller, and at food events at The Ethical Dairy you will find the only certified Pasture for Life dining in Scotland, while The Free Company aligns strongly with the movement often serving PfL meat and has been awarded a Michelin Green Star.

And then there is the issue of food security. During the panel, there was a brief but pointed reference to the Strait of Hormuz, the shipping corridor through which a significant proportion of the world’s oil and fertiliser feedstocks pass. Most dairies are dependent on global supply chains, which can cause prices to spike in an already margin challenged industry. The Ethical Dairy’s regenerative, pasture‑based model is designed to reduce that dependency alongside environmental benefits, welfare for animals and workers, biodiversity gains, and nutritional advantages. 

A Dairy Story shows that keeping cows and calves together can work and that this pastoral vision can become a reality. 

Stills credited to A Dairy Story

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