Ah there’s that brush and your tar again. No. It’s not. You cannot assume that the whole scheme is dysfunctional because of the behaviour of an incredibly tiny minority. We didn’t brandish all doctors as the same as Harold Shipman, nor do we brand all parents as neglectful as those of baby P. So why on earth would one supposed example of poor conditions ever be assumed to be applicable to all members of the same schemes?
Where did I say the whole scheme was dysfunctional? I’m just pointing out that if the scheme isn’t actually catching and preventing cases of cruelty, it’s a sign it could be improved. You keep wildly exaggerating the points being made because they’re easier to dismiss that way, but I genuinely don’t believe it should be controversial to say that if a scheme designed to guarantee high welfare standards is not succeeding in doing that, it probably needs some work.
Your own examples bloody prove this - when baby P died there was a massive investigation into how and why he was so badly let down by social services, because the safety net that was designed to save children from that kind of cruelty didn’t work. Imagine if everyone had taken your attitude and said ‘not all social workers are negligent so the system clearly works fine’.
And I say supposed because these AR exposeé type situations rarely produce any actual concrete evidence of the alleged wrong doing. There’s always damning photos or videos accompanied by some vegan narrating things in a sad voice to tell you what’s going on and we are just supposed to swallow it as the truth of life as a farm animal? Like the article in the OP shows what 3/4 stills from an unknown video? Apparently there was a video but they’ve now removed it? And all that was from a 5 month period? And we are expected to believe that it is true 24/7? Why is there not more? If something was so systematically abusive there should be hours and hours of footage from those 5 months you’d think wouldn’t you? Yet here we are, some stills with an AR activist telling us what’s happening. I saw a video yesterday from a similar AR activist showing how the “fharmers” (catchy, like it) abuse their cows with blowtorches and use them to frighten the animals into submission. Do you know what they were actually doing? Singeing the cows bags to remove hair and to keep them clean. It’s good husbandry practice and we do it regularly. But joe public don’t know that do they? They see what the AR activists want them to- farmers abusing animals for money. Another vegan group yesterday posted some photos of some calves “trapped” in a feeder and being forced to eat in order to get fatter more quickly. It went viral, people condemning farmers and calling them abusive. The best bit? It was a creep feeder. It has a bar across the back to stop those which are too tall (ie mum) getting in and eating all the food and leaving none for the calves. The animals were free to come and go as they please. But the amount of comments and shares that were generated which actually believed what they were being told was insane. Vegans claiming that they have saved the calves because they went back and they were all out of the feeder. But because people don’t know any better than what is being put in front of them with a sad commentary they will believe it and anyone who says different is just condoning the abuse.
If you have evidence that the link OP posted is fake news then by all means share it, but nobody is going to take a face value your assumption that it can’t be real when the red tractor scheme itself has accepted it.
Can you not see how this makes everyone a little jaded and sick of the whole AR exposeé situation? There’s all these dodgy clips and stills being thrown round and everyone is being told that this is what happens every day in every farm across the country when those that know know it’s not, but their voice is never as loud as the AR activists, and even if it is you get branded as excusing abuse. Which is not in any way what any one is doing, but you shouldn’t be subjected to abuse for trying to use your common bloody sense to explain why what they’re seeing isn’t as black and white as the AR lot would like to believe.
Do you feel equally furious about the vast swathes of pro-farming propaganda out there? Unless you’re a hypocrite you must be just as furious that beef adverts don’t show footage from slaughterhouses, or calves being separated from their mothers, or mastitis being treated.
Sorry that was long. But I hate this narrative that has cropped up several times over several threads that farmers are abusive and that vegans and AR activists are beyond reproach. You say nothing and you’re complicit, say something and you’re condoning it. We literally cannot win regardless of what we do because there’s always someone willing to tell a tall tale to further their own agenda.
The only people who keep tarring farmers with the same brush is you. Countless times on this thread I and others posters have reiterated that these criticisms don’t apply to all farmers, and every single time you’ve taken specific and direct criticisms of particular instances of cruelty as an indictment of all farming. I imagine that when you’re not so fired up and defensive you’re just as horrified by cruelty happening on other farms as anyone, but for some reason you seem to feel compelled to deny that it even exists, just because it occurs in the same industry you work in. It’s so frustrating, because any industry benefits from its practitioners recognising and condemning wrongdoing from others within it, rather than closing ranks, insisting everything is fine and condemning any suggestion otherwise as fake news.