dairy cows « A Compassionate World

Posts Tagged ‘dairy cows’

Urgent action needed on dairy

Tuesday, July 17th, 2012

The recent focus on UK milk prices has put a fresh spotlight on an old problem. We have shaped our agriculture over decades through the way we shop, the way we buy and the way we make laws. Modern dairying is going down a path that we ourselves have made for it and the result is a system that fails farmers, communities, animals and the environment.

Dairy farmers have either to run ever faster, or lose their farms. Dairy cows are increasingly kept indoors where they are pushed beyond their limits, producing more and suffering ill-health in the process. As dairy farms’ size increases, so does their ability to pollute, consume the world’s precious grain stocks and damage our countryside.

At Compassion, we believe that dairy farming in the UK, and indeed throughout the world, deserves a food and farming system that gives farmers a fair price – for a fair product. And a fair product is one that is fair to us all; that supports our environment and our rural communities, that provides us with high quality nutritious food and our dairy cows with a good life.

Reform is clearly needed, and it provides us the opportunity to make farming work for people, for animals and for the planet. It’s an opportunity we would be fools to waste.

We are calling for urgent action to ensure that a fair price is paid for a fair product.

What can be done to encourage humane sustainable dairy farming?

Government can provide appropriate mediation and/or ombudsman services to ensure that the interests of farmers and society are given full regard in setting the price structure for a fair price for a fair product.
Government and industry can work together to provide a statutory guarantee for farm gate milk prices that allows farmers a sustainable price that includes a living wage, room for investment in the business and delivery of good dairy cow welfare.
The EU can agree legal standards for dairy welfare.
The EU can also provide mandatory labelling for animal products, by method of production.
Industry can consider premium payments for high welfare systems and good welfare outcomes.
Government can ensure that tax and other fiscal measures make farmers pay production’s hidden costs to the environment, while rewarding moves to humane-sustainable agriculture.
All groups can raise consumer awareness of food and farming, with particular reference to livestock production.

Our team here is committed to lobbying both UK and EU Governments to achieve a fairer farming system for all. We also engage directly with the food industry to improve the welfare of animals throughout the supply chain. Your support is hugely appreciated. Thank you so much.

Tags: dairy, dairy cows, dairy farming, milk. Posted in General | 1 Comment »

Good vibrations

Thursday, November 24th, 2011

Xalapa, Mexico: It could be an English upland scene, except the light is so good the grass looks greener than I’ve ever seen. Small groups of black and white cows are dotted across a rolling landscape. A tiny hummingbird flits like an electric bumble-bee around a roadside conifer.

This is southeast Mexico and we’re at an altitude of 2,000 metres on the lower slopes of an ancient volcano. Our ascent was coloured by the sight of dairy cows eating grass like they should. The contrast from California two days ago is stark; cows grazing naturally versus a land perversely peppered with mega-dairies; industrial facilities with thousands of cows crowded in one place.

We’ve stopped outside the village of Acajete and look toward the Sierra Madre mountain range shrouded in the morning mist. In the distance, the bustling city of Xalape winks in the sunlight. A farm-hand walks up the hill carrying three white buckets. Wearing a blue Ferrari tee-shirt, white wellies and a baseball cap, he waves and beckons warmly. We are treated to an impromptu tour of the farm.

Ana Maria Frauzoni Hernandez, a farmer herself and veterinarian, arrives to take us round. We are taken through a cluster of modest flat-roofed buildings that comprise the farmhouse and the dairy. There’s an unmistakable smell in the air; of baby-sweet dairy mixed with a slight hint of manure. Hernandez explains that this is her brother’s farm. She talks about respecting the cow as a noble animal. We walk past scattered trees to where 20 calves are loafing in the sun. I stand in the inevitable cow-pat.

It’s just one of 34 farms in a local dairy cooperative. It’s a pretty big farm by European standards. There are 500 cows on this farm, but you really wouldn’t know it as the cows gently graze in small clusters across the hillside.

We watch as forty Friesian cows are milked on the hillside. The cows and two farm-hands stand amongst a smattering of silver milk-churns. Hernandez explains that the cows are milked twice a day. Her father used to milk them three times a day but the cows got stressed. When milking is over, a horse carries the churns up the hill. The cows walk up the hill too. It’s wonderful to see them walking naturally; without the bloated bulging udders and splayed back legs so characteristic of what we saw on California’s mega-dairies.

The cows here are kept outdoors all year round. No chemicals, preventative antibiotics or hormones are used. A bit of supplementary food is offered when the grass is short.

Hernandez tells us that the cows here have an average lifespan of 20 years. Again, hugely different to the mega-dairies, where cows are often worn out and sent for slaughter at just 5-6 years. She reflects that cows on mega-dairies are likely to suffer stress from the way they’re kept.

Toward the end of the tour, Hernandez laments at the difficulty of getting a profitable price for the milk. It’s a familiar theme on both sides of the Atlantic. And with all systems big and small; the memory is still fresh of the tears of a Californian farmer, talking about the suicide of his friend, a large-scale dairy farmer.

The milk here is sold under the name, ‘Joyalat’ – Joyal I’m told meaning Jewel. Hernandez sees the milk as “white gold”. She shares customer feedback about how good the milk is here, apparently because the cows graze naturally on grass full of nutrients.

We tasted the yoghurt from the farm; it was full of flavour, very smooth and with no hint of sharpness; delicious. A poster in the dairy window proclaims proudly that “The best milk in the world is produced in Mexico”. Today, I’m inclined to agree.

Tags: cows, dairy, dairy cows, Mega dairies, Mexico. Posted in General | No Comments »

California girls

Monday, November 21st, 2011

Central Valley, California: I’m inside the world’s largest cheese factory. It’s huge; complete with security guards, visitor centre and restaurant. White-coated workers are busy making orange-coloured cheese. It’s the culmination of my journey through California.

The drive here was along a road littered with mega-dairies; industrial dairy farms with thousands of cows crowded in one place. I passed a livestock auction market where young cows are bought and worn-out ‘cull’ cows sold for their final journey.

Earlier, I flew out in a small plane. I asked the pilot whether we would fly over any mega-dairies; he was concerned he might not find one for us. He needn’t have worried. Within minutes of take-off, we flew over our first. Then came another, and another; thick and fast. They were like angry scars on the face of this regimented countryside; muddy-brown blots amongst vast fields of uniform crops.

Thousands of cows stood crowded on dirt; not a blade of grass in sight. This was ‘zero-grazing’. Lagoons the size of Olympic swimming pools, some like small reservoirs, captured the inevitable outpouring of liquid manure from so many cows. A thousand cows produce as much muck as 50,000 people. There were far more than a thousand cows on each farm.

These lagoons are said to be poorly lined, allowing muck-slurry to seep out, often contaminating ground water. They sometimes overflow, polluting precious waterways in this arid State.

I also visited a local school surrounded by mega-dairies; five within a three-mile radius. Between 3,000 and 6,000 cows on each; that’s 30-60 times more cows than the average dairy farm in Britain.

The march of the mega-dairies is the target of fierce opposition. Residents and public health experts concerned about farm dust and gas emissions and how they affect people. Fishermen, environmentalists and local communities worried about water pollution and what it does to wildlife and drinking water. I also spoke to farmers. As the dairies get bigger, more and more farmers lose their livelihoods.

I scanned the shelves of cheese in the factory shop. I tried some. It was fairly tasteless and rubbery. The visitor centre painted a picture of how cows are kept. It was unrecognisable from the reality of the mega-dairies just along the street. Where cows never see grass and are pushed to produce so much milk that they quickly become worn out. A poster at the nearby auction mart showed photos of happy-looking cows beside the words of a Beach Boys song; “I wish they all could be California girls”. I couldn’t help thinking that the cows would disagree.

It’s easy to feel hopeless when faced with what seems like an onslaught. It’s also inspiring to connect with the growing movement for change, both here in the USA and in Europe.

We should remember what we’ve already achieved. Extreme confinement crates for dairy veal calves – banned in Europe; the use of the GM milk-boosting hormone, BST – banned in Europe; and the 8,000 cow mega-dairy proposal in Nocton, England – ripped up at the planning stage.

We are making a difference. And by joining hands with the mega-dairy protest movement in the USA, we can do so much more.

Tags: dairy, dairy cows, Mega dairies, zero grazing. Posted in General | 1 Comment »

Mega Dairies – A Retrograde Step

Wednesday, November 16th, 2011

Following our success in stopping the proposed mega-dairy at Nocton, Lincolnshire which had a starting herd of 3,700 increasing later to 8,000, I am absolutely dismayed by Powys County Council’s decision to allow a 1,000 cow mega-dairy at Leighton near Welshpool.

It’s extremely sad, not only for the cows involved, but also for the beautiful Welsh countryside. According to reports, the mega-dairy will be on land overlooking Powis Castle in the Severn Valley.

Cows belong in fields. Not industrial factory farms. They can live up to 20 years or more. But high yielding dairy cows typically live for just six years. Many suffer with chronic lameness, mastitis or infertility.

Cows kept outside generally have more opportunity to behave naturally; including grazing on pasture, walking freely and breathing fresh air. Cows kept indoors are more restrained. They are kept in forced ventilation. They often stand on hard concrete. They are fed a diet with more concentrate in it which often leads to digestive problems.

To learn more about the welfare of cattle and mega-dairies, please visit our website.

Because cows belong in fields and not in mega-dairies, Compassion believes the Powys dairy is nothing short of a backward step; not only for dairy cow welfare, but for dairy farmers too.

Britain’s dairy farming remains a largely pasture-based business. There is no need for it to follow the US mega-dairy route. I believe that farming and food industry interests must work together with government and consumer groups to ensure Britain’s dairy industry continues to use more humane, economic and sustainable principles. A dairy ‘arms race’ which pushes cows ever harder in pursuit of lower costs is a bad route for cow welfare and a road to nowhere for the future of dairy farming.

We will continue our campaign to keep dairy cows in fields. And will continue to oppose applications for mega-dairies. I’m pleased to say that we recently opposed a mega-dairy in Carmarthen which it was feared locally could expand to as many as 3,000 zero-grazed cows. This application was withdrawn.

To learn more about our campaign against mega-dairies and all forms of factory farming, please visit our new campaign Filthy Business.

Tags: cows belong in fields, dairy, dairy cows, Mega dairies, Pasture based, zero-grazed. Posted in General | 1 Comment »

Mega-dairies and the future

Monday, February 21st, 2011

Wisconsin, USA: The withdrawal of the proposal for a US-style mega-dairy in Lincolnshire, England, is a huge victory for the many people and organisations that put so much into stopping this unwelcome style of dairy farming coming to the UK. And writing from Wisconsin, having just seen the US mega-dairy on which the Nocton proposal was based, I am able to appreciate still further what this victory means. It is a victory for Britain’s human-scale dairy farmers, for dairy cow welfare, for the local community in Lincolnshire, and for the environment. It is also a victory for the future integrity of our milk.

The campaign brought together a broad and diverse range of people and interests; foodies, environmentalists, animal welfarists, family farmers, local people and more. It was this very diversity that made the campaign so strong. And it points to future winning strategies; that the campaign to end factory farming need not, and should not, be solely about animal welfare, hugely important though it is. It speaks to the fact that factory farming all too often threatens our environment, our public health and the quality of our food. And that these linkages are increasingly being recognised. They are increasingly motivating people. There is now huge opportunity to mobilise against factory farming in a way that engages people on their terms, their interests; and it need not always be about animal welfare. These wider concerns can often be more powerful. Indeed, in the case of the Nocton proposal, it was the objection by the Environment Agency that appeared to prove the knock-out blow.
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Tags: dairy cows, Mega dairies, Nocton. Posted in General | No Comments »

Dairy farmer speaks out against mega-dairies

Monday, November 8th, 2010

“Mega dairies do not provide a long term sustainable solution – they simply offer a quick fix”. So said dairy farmer, Neil Darwent, at the Parliamentary Reception in London where over 50 MPs heard our concerns over the proposal to build an 8,000 cow industrial dairy farm in Lincolnshire. Neil spoke with such clarity, and from a position of undoubted knowledge, being a farmer of a 400 cow dairy herd in the South West of England. Such was the power of his speech that I am delighted to have his permission to share with you here some of what Neil said.

Addressing fears that cows kept on mega-dairies will be taken out of the fields and denied the ability to graze on grass for most, if not all the time:

“Grass is probably the most incredible plant on the planet. Different species growing all around the globe have been the foundation of livestock farming for centuries. For ruminant animals it provides far more than just freedom – it delivers a complete balanced diet offering energy, protein, minerals and trace elements that can be freely harvested by the animals that graze it and, in turn, these abundant pastures indirectly supply a large portion of our own dietary needs. We don’t just feed cows on grazed grass because it’s good for them – it’s also a very cheap feed and one that grows well throughout the UK.

The western side of our country grows grass and the silty soils of East Anglia are the nation’s vegetable patch and cereal bowl. Displacing one sector of agriculture with another like this is not sustainable – farming evolved where it did for a reason. I find it incredible in a hungry world with more and more people aspiring to eat meat and dairy products, we are ripping up pasture to grow cereals, which will then be fed to our livestock.”

As I said, when I had the privilege to share a platform with Neil at the Westminster event, the bottom line is that cows belong in fields; it’s as simple as that.

But is there a big benefit to the dairy industry to mega-dairies? Neil Darwent again:

“Mega dairies do not provide a long term sustainable solution – they simply offer a quick fix for those trying to maintain margins in the supply chain whilst offering cheap food. The operators of these farms will wield no more power in negotiating milk prices than they do today. Furthermore, the consignment of dairy cows into mega herds will serve to only distance consumers further from the origins of their food. If we are to provide food for future generations from our own shores, we must promote farming systems that create something of real value to us all. ”

What came across at the Parliamentary event, especially when listening to Neil, was that the mega-dairy issue really is one that unites consumers, animal welfarists and the farming community. In my view, mega-dairies will not only alienate consumers and undermine the integrity of milk, it will also turn the screw further on already hard-pressed dairy farmers. I listened particularly closely, therefore, to Neil’s closing remarks on the night:

“We must learn the lessons from other failures in industrialised farming such as battery hens. I am here tonight because I believe farmers have the answers. But if we do not engage directly with everyone who has a stake in our future we will build farms that are wrong for us, wrong for our livestock and wrong for everyone in this country.“

Anyone sharing these concerns can join the campaign to keep cows grazing in our green fields. The future of our cows’ welfare and the family dairy farming community depends on it.

Tags: dairy, dairy cows, Mega dairies. Posted in General | 1 Comment »

SAY NO TO MEGA-DAIRIES

Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010

“Cows that live in fields are happier cows. I enjoy having milk on my cereal but I wouldn’t like to have milk from a mega-dairy cow,’ said Ellie, age 11, from Nocton Primary School. Well, I could not agree more with Ellie. And if she were able to attend last week’s Parliamentary Reception, I think she would have been as anxious as I am at the proposal to build an 8,000-cow mega-dairy where the cows would be kept indoors for much of the time.

Ellie saw our adverts on her local buses last week. “Cows belong in fields,” the ads declare, “Say no to the mega-dairy.” Ellie agreed. She and her classmates created wonderful drawings to illustrate exactly where they believe cows should live.
(Photo: © Richard Picksley)

The Lincolnshire bus ads are just one part of our nationwide awareness-raising campaign: from the buses which reach into the heart of the beautiful Lincolnshire countryside, to our adverts in the Times, Telegraph and Daily Mail, our recent reception in Parliament, to everyone across the world with access to the Internet who read my blog and visit our website.

Thousands of people are coming together to say “No to Nocton!” Children, dairy farmers, MPs and people like you who care deeply about how we treat farm animals. I must also thank our wonderful supporters as your generous contributions are making the bus advertising campaign possible. Thank you!

We’re also joined in our campaign against mega dairies by such like-minded organisations as the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA), who co-organised the Parliamentary Reception, Friends of the Earth, Campaign for the Protection of Rural England, Soil Association and 38 Degrees.

As I made my way home after the Reception in Westminster, I found it hard to believe that at a time when we’re making steady progress with chickens and pigs increasingly coming out of cages and crates and going outdoors, we are faced with the threat of dairy cows going indoors, out of the fields, in huge numbers, with little or no chance to graze outdoors.

We cannot let this happen!

Time is of the essence.

Not only are we closely monitoring the developments in Lincolnshire, including working hard with local residents who don’t want a mega-dairy on their doorstep, we’re also supporting Robert Flello, MP for Stoke-on-Trent South and his Sustainable Livestock Bill. The Bill seeks to tackle climate change by reducing British meat and dairy farms’ dependence on animal feed grown in South America.

We need at least 100 MPs to be present at the Bill’s second reading in the House of Commons on Friday 12 November for it to proceed further. Please act today and ask your MP to be present at the second reading and vote in support of Robert Flello’s Bill. Please act now!

Together, we can not just stop mega-dairies from ruining our countryside, but we can also help guide the future of British agriculture toward humane and sustainable farming practices.

Thank you!

Tags: dairy cows, Mega dairies, Nocton. Posted in General | 1 Comment »