Plans to open first massive intensive dairy farm in UK

[AnnieLobeseder]

Plans to open first massive intensive dairy farm in UK.

Personally, I can see this as being the thing that finally tips me into veganism.

Other views?

Dairy Cows:

• Kept in an unnatural state
• Artificial insemination
• Calves are taken away - male dairy cows (Jersey) are culled
• Worth is only dependent on the quantity of milk produced

Regardless of how much space they have, what they are fed - it is still a cruel business and buying organic or non-organic milk isn't going to make a jot of difference.

Dairy farmers only get the wholesale price of their milk - it doesn't cover the costs ...

BadgerPaws - I agree with you.

"Right now most people want cheap rather than ethical milk and that's where the mass producers are."

However, to be fair even where consumers want ethical products it involves a significant amount of research and effort to understand what is behind the marketing slogan on the label.

Most people, would want to feel they could trust that something labelled 'free range' or 'natural' or 'ethically sourced' really has a meaningful impact on the quality of life of the animal and the quality of the food itself.

"However, to be fair even where consumers want ethical products it involves a significant amount of research and effort to understand what is behind the marketing slogan on the label."

True... This is somewhere that the Government could help, the provision of better information about exactly what a label, such as "free range" really means.

"Dairy farmers only get the wholesale price of their milk - it doesn't cover the costs ..."

Perhaps there should be a "Fair Trade" type of badge set up by milk producers which would only sell milk at a fair price.

However consumers would have to commit to buying it, and in the end I believe that most shoppers will just look at the price and pick up the cheapest pint.

Fair Trade is growing but even when most people must be aware of what it means most people still buy the cheaper product.

Consumers want the price of everything to be bargain basement.

We don't want to pay a fair price for things. Be it clothes, fruit, books...we all seek out bargains. MNet is full of posts recommending where bargains can be had.

We can't have it both ways. The supplier always suffers or quality does.

Holstein breed cows are the ones who have their bull calves massively culled -- they are milk machines and the bull calves are unsuitable for veal. Jersy bull calves can be raised for veal, afaik. Friesans are even better for this purpose.

I would buy milk from a producer that promised superior animal welfare standards for the cows -- like not just bolting the boy calves and even allowing the calves to stay with their mothers for longer.

Most beef cattle live year round in sheds and on grain overwhelmingly (apparently consumers don't like the yellow marbled meat that eating grass leads to). I can't see that the mass production farm in OP link is any worse than life is for most UK beef cattle already.

Iljkk - its true that most UK cattle are typically over wintered inside but not true most beef cattle are raised in sheds. In summer they are typically let out to eat grass. Grain is very expensive.

We are on a fairly restricted income and my biggest expense is the supermarket shop.

I will buy the cheapest stuff if I have to but I will not compromise on free range eggs and organic milk.

A few years back I used to buy only freerange/organic meat too. I dont eat it but everyone else in the family does. Then an organic chicken went up to 12 quid and I had to stop.

I think we can all try (even those on low incomes) but some things are beyond our means.

I do hang around the reduced section and virtually snatch anything free range or organic out of the hand of the bloke doing the pricing though

If people are serious about wanting to make a difference can I suggest looking at this site?

CIWF produce a list of what to buy (or not to buy) from various supermarkets and they campaign on issues like intensive farming, beak trimming etc.

"If people are serious about wanting to make a difference can I suggest looking at this site?"

They recommend buying organic milk, which is about 20p more in Tesco's than the "normal" stuff.

I'd be very happy to be proved wrong, but I can't see being passionate enough to make a change and pay 20p more when they can just shirk responsibility and blame the Government instead.

i live near where they propose this site and remember it being featured on coumtryfile too. I sincerly hope this doesnt go ahead, another example of greed and what is wrong in the world

I dont notice the extra on the organic milk TBH or on eggs. Meat is a totally different matter. Its so expensive anyway and the ethicial stuff is way out of my price range.

We toured a Norfolk mixed use farm one May (preschool trip, 2008) and the farmer explained that his beef cattle spend all their lives under cover ("they prefer it") and eating almost entirely eating grain because of the colour affect on the resulting fat and consumer preference for lily white rather than yellow-tinged fat (eating lots of grass makes the fat turn yellow....I was :( with the crowded sheds the cattle were in, too, but that's a different story!) Also, I took groundwater readings on a beef farm for several years (Notts, 1998-2000) -- that man's beef cattle also seemed to live indoors year round.

Obviously some cattle are out and about. I'd eagerly buy yellow-fat beef over white-fat beef if I ever saw it anywhere (not in my Sainsbury's or Lidl, that's for sure). If anyone spots yellow-tinged beef for sale anywhere, let me know!

DEFRA are currently doing a study (to complete 2011) about the welfare of "continously housed cattle"; it seems reliable stats don't exist on how many dairy cattle are managed thus and how they fare. I thought most the UK herd were Holsteins who can only achieve their expected high milk output if fed mostly/entirely grain. Supersize farms have been around for a while, anyway.

Vegetarian society reckons that 15-20% of beef cattle in Britain are indoors only, so I stand corrected, BeenBeta (but 20% is still a lot), and the remainder are almost always indoors at least some of the year.

I've heard that grass-fed beef and dairy cows have more omega-3 and other such nice things in their output, so it's not just a an animal welfare issue, it's better nutrition for us consumers, too.

thefirstMrsDeVere, I agree.

It's organic dairy for me. Not just for the sake of the cows, but I for my families well being. If I need to counteract the cost, I buy less. no meat.

Yes 15 - 20% sounds about right. There are 'rose veal' calves that are kept continuoulsy indoors and intensive beef fattening systems called 'bull beef' were bulls are not castrated so they grow quicker. They are generally kept indoors in steel pens as they are too dangerous to let out in a field.

Dairy cows continuously indoors are thankfully quite rare in the UK. The indoor dairy system is a North American idea.

Pfft stop moaning, people want the moon on a stick, you can't have everything, you want cheap meat and cheap dairy all year round, then animals have to became another product, a unit created for profit, I mean damn, you people putting milk in your coffee everyday not thinking about the fact milk is only produced when a calf is born, a calf thats dragged off to be fed formula and killed after 6 weeks, the mother drugged to produce more milk for longer and made pregnant again when it drys up, ignorence is bliss I guess.

But IMHO if you haven't the stomach to kill an animal then you shouldn't be eating them. if you are a animal racist happy to eat a slab of sheep but wouldn't eat a dog or a rabbit because they are oooh so cute or some crap then you shouldn't be eating meat.

if you can't come to terms with the production line like processes needed to make animals and animal by products into the cheap everyday supermarket goods you people demand then you shouldn't demand it.

End of rant from a former Vegan (for 12 years) who eats meat and fish but doesn't touch dairy. and would love to try dog meat sometime. 3

Damn this site is anti japanese emoticon.

the 3 was ment to be a kiss meh.

mmm... I'd happily eat dog, too. Or horse, or guinea pig.
I don't want to do the hard graft of growing all my own wheat or potatoes, so I don't go for the argument that if you aren't willing to slaughter it you shouldn't eat it. I don't really understand how my car works but I still feel entitled to drive it (etc.)

I just think if you haven't got the guts to do it you shouldn't eat it, so many people find it turns there stomach to see an animal slaughtered for them to pick up and buy in a shop then eat, it's a disjointed warped view of the world they don't like to think of the product as a living thing, if you can't take the heat stay out the kitchen.

Why do we in this day and age think we should eat a dead thing at every meal and consume a creatures by product everyday, back in the day not that long ago, even before rationing, things like meat, cheese and milk where luxuries eaten only a few times a week (hence the sunday roast, buy a big bird and eat all the left overs for about 3 days).

our diets have changed a lot tho, if you don't want intensive farming them go back to buying fruit, veg, the odd bit of meat/fish and dairy products and cook everything at home.

If you want biscuits, cakes, ready meals, pasta sources, carton/canned soup and restaurants of all kinds then you must subscribe to intensive farming.

At laugh at people thinking they are doing there bit for animal welfare by buying organic milk along with a packet of cakes and some skin moisturiser and a fancy bar of soap , open your eyes.

We should be trying to move away from this kind of factory farming and not getting deeper and deeper into production systems which are abusive of animals and degrade the quality of our food- and all in the name of profit rather than increased production to meet need.

There is a national campaign against this proposal:

www.38degrees.org.uk/page/s/factoryfarm

I apologise if the link doesn't post correctly, I'm not too sure how to do it

thesecondcoming - sick animals are allowed to be treated under specific circumstances on organic farms in the EU though.

The FSA website says "use of conventional veterinary medicines is focussed on treating sick animals".

In the EU organic farmers are permitted to use antibiotics to treat mastitis but not in the USA where no antibiotics have been approved by the USDA yet for use in organic dairy herds.

Typically a mix of husbandry techniques, homepathic medicines and conventional antibiotics are used by EU organic farmers and the incidence of use of antibiotics in the UK on organic cows is less than 50% of that in normal non organic herds.

Milk from any cow being treated for mastitis has to be excluded from the food supply chain anyway so there is no reason why an organic cow should be treated any differently as there is no danger posed to human health.

TBH, much of what we now call 'organic food' is really just food produced under what were typical conditions on low intensity small family farms 40 - 50 years ago.

"I just think if you haven't got the guts to do it you shouldn't eat it"

Do you apply that "if you haven't got the guts to do it you shouldn't use it" to all aspects of your life or just the one that you happen to feel strongly about?

I personally couldn't bear to go down into a deep dark sewer and shovel poo or to climb up high electricity pylon to work on it.

Does that mean that I can't use toilets or electricity?

Of course not.

So why apply that logic only to the eating of meat and to nothing else in a person's life?

Eating meat when you're not keen to slaughter an animal isn't warped or disjointed any more than my continuing to use a toilet or electricity is.

Personally I couldn't eat a cat either, however I have no problem with people or countries that do.

However I agree that you do have a point about people willingly disconnecting what they want and what happens because they want it. Mass factory dairy production isn't the fault of the Government or greedy produces but the fault of people who happily buy it.