When George Jessel became a partner at his father’s 1,000-acre arable dairy farm in the mid 1980s, he looked after 200 cows and sold wheat and barley.

Today, his business in Brabourne, near Ashford, is unrecognisable; the dairy has gone and instead farm buildings have been converted into offices.

He launched Kent Cheese Company on the site in 2007, which he sold to the Cheesemakers of Canterbury in 2010. A contractor now farms the 300 acres of land left for crops.

“Our contractor farms land for several farmers who are no longer big enough to farm themselves,” said Mr Jessel, a former chairman of Kent County Agricultural Society and a Kent Ambassador.

“He owns all his own kit so we don’t have to pay for it. We can’t afford machinery but he has the economies of scale.

“Closing the dairy was purely an economic decision. The price of milk was too low and I could see the way forward was to sell the dairies.

“You have to be big to be good these days. At today’s prices, farming has had to change. You can’t sit back on your laurels and expect the world to be nice to you.

“As farmers, we have to adapt to modern trends and what the public want. They want cheap food available immediately.”

Mr Jessel’s story is a common one, particularly for dairy farmers struggling to run a business against the collapsing price supermarkets will pay for a litre of milk.

The average UK farmgate price stood at just over 24 pence a litre in May, having spiralled down from just under 34 pence in February last year. These are relatively good times too. The average price in 2002 was just over 17 pence.

As a result, there are less than 50 dairy farmers in Kent today from a high of about 500 in the early 1980s.

“We can’t pay a sensible amount for milk in this country,” said Nick Sandford, Kent chairman of countryside policy group the CLA and the estate manager of Godinton House in Ashford.

“If the price went up five pence in the supermarket people would still buy it but it has become a loss leader.

“When the farmer is getting such a low amount for a litre of milk it is not sustainable but consumers don’t care.

“When the farmer is getting such a low amount for a litre of milk it is not sustainable but consumers don’t care..." - Nick Sandford, CLA

“There is a huge knock-on effect with support services like transport and fuel.

“The thing about farming is it is not just about farming. There are so many things that depend on it.

“If the big efficient farms can’t make money, then we are in trouble.”

For small dairies and farmers, the only way to stay alive has been to find new ways to sell their product to the paying public.

At the Kent County Show this month, there were as many farmers parading cattle as those selling all kinds of food and drink to visitors.

Steve and Karen Reynolds were two of them.

They have sold blue cheeses made from milk produced at their 300-acre farm in Staplehurst since 2009.

About 80% of milk made at Iden Manor Farm is sold to Freshways, the UK’s largest independent processing dairy, with the rest used to make its Kentish Blue and Kentish Bluebell cheeses under the Kingcott Cheese brand.

Now they plan to bottle and sell a small portion of their white stuff to be sold as Kentish milk, after being appraoched by their wholesalers about doing so a few years ago.

They decided to take the plunge in March when their son Frank made it clear he did not want to go to university after completing his A-levels at Cranbrook School this summer.

Instead, he will run the new bottling arm of the family business when it gets up and running this autumn.

“It has been an idea floating in the air for a few years and we were waiting for a time when the investment was right,” said Karen, who farms about 100 cows including traditional black and while, Holstein Friesian and brown Swiss variaties.

“Frank already milks for us and he decided he wanted to run an enterprise now rather than study for another three years.

"Steve and I have got to the point where we can invest a little time into something else so Frank will do the bottling with some guidance from us.

“Some can weather low milk prices by borrowing against their assets and some are big enough to ride it out but a small farm like this has got to find a different enterprise..." - Karen Reynolds, Kingcott Cheese

“A dairy farm this size couldn’t sustain another salary so he needed to come up with another way to enter the business.

“We have helped with the financials and kitting it out. Hopefully it will develop and he will develop with it.”

She added: “We are not looking to be millionnaires. No dairy farmer goes into it for that. We are just looking for a comfortable living.

“Dairy prices are so low at the moment that most dairy farmers are running at a loss which is unsustainable.

“Some can weather it by borrowing against their assets and some are big enough to ride it out but a small farm like this has got to find a different enterprise.

“Hopefully selling and bottling our own milk will be enough to make the farm viable again.”