Thanks to the folks at Animal Liberation of Australia, we have this stark reminder (above) that calves have shorter lifespans than flies. This sickening state of affairs is thanks to the Dairy and Veal Industries.
Our Israeli brothers and sisters in the Animal Rights Movement run a wonderful website called CHAI (Concern for Helping Animals in Israel). As Chai's Website points out:
In North America, over a million infant calves pass their short lives in wooden crates to produce veal for the table. Their mothers in the dairy industry are condemned to a continuous cycle of pregnancy-birth-lactation to keep producing milk. The veal and dairy industries are therefore completely intertwined and interdependent. In a dairy operation the female offspring replace the slaughtered milking cows, but the male calves, once born, have little value for farmers. One common outcome is to simply leave the calf to die of exposure or to smash his skull with a handy shovel or sledgehammer.
Where there are dealers to collect them, newborn calves are sold as "bob" veal for about $50 apiece and killed, barely able to stand, at under a week old. In larger dairy operations, where more infants are available, traders buy them for sale to veal producers. Once there and crated, they are treated as nothing more than mechanical units of production, never as living creatures with needs and natures of their own.
What kind of a civilization are we when the lives of sentient beings become so meaningless to us that we murder them within a week of their birth? Where is the pro-life movement to help these most vulnerable of beings?
Here's a suggestion: Get rid of those obnoxious "Got Milk?" ads, like the one below with singer/actress Miley Cyrus, replace it with the image above. "Got Flies?" says the new motto. "Well, thanks to veal and dairy, they enjoy longer lives than calves."
Our brothers and sisters are fighting the good fight in England. They're well organized, passionate about their cause and their efforts are bearing wonderful fruit. They are an inspiration to other animal rights activists around the world. They are waging a battle against the factory farm system. And it appears they are winning great victories. We should take note of their efforts. These men and women are truly making a difference for the better.
Plans for three large-scale units in England have encountered fierce resistance from campaigners who say they would cause extra noise, smell and disruption and cause more stress and disease for animals.
Animal welfare organisations fear the proposals are signs that a new intensive system of agriculture could soon replace the UK's patchwork of small livestock farms.
In the past three months, plans have been brought forward for an 8,000-cow dairy farm at Nocton in Lincolnshire and a 3,000-cow unit at South Witham, also Lincolnshire. Both have been withdrawn following fierce opposition.
There is also growing opposition to a 2,500-pig sow farm located at Foston in Derbyshire. The Foston pig farm, according to the animal welfare group Viva, will be the largest intensive factory farming pig farm in the UK. Like all huge factory farm operations, the Foston farm will place pigs in dark, disorienting and cramped places, where they have barely enough room for their piglets.
But the struggle against factory farms in the UK has been a resounding success. And animal rights activists are keeping their marching shoes on to protest the future creation of such gargantuan enterprises. Groups like Viva, Compassion in World Farming and the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) are at the forefront of the struggle. Most of these activists do not want to eliminate farming. As Suzi Morris, the director of WSPA, put it:
It's all being driven by economies of scale. We have been importing a lot of milk and the UK dairy industry has been undermined and conventional dairy farmers have been going out of business. We believe that animals should be farmed for food but we don't agree there can be any justification, economic or otherwise, for the commoditisation of animals and their housing in such large units. (Source)
In an ideal world, everybody would go vegan. But it's not an ideal world. And farming is a key part of most economies. I am elated to see so many of these huge factory farm enterprises stopped dead in their tracks before even having a chance to take off. The UK activists are offering a model to the rest of the world on how to resist these giant farming enterprises.
Part of their success has been using populist arguments to their advantage - siding with the small farmer over the impersonal giant factory farm. It's working in the UK. Here in North America, where we have many factory farms and they are fairly well entrenched, that argument is a harder sell. But it is important, nonetheless, that we learn lessons from the struggle in the UK and take heart. Our side is making gains. Each day, animal rights activists have something good to show for their efforts. We're gaining traction. Our ends are noble. Our fight won't end until the life of every animal is respected.
I am a veteran of watching these animal abuse videos, but even this one is hard to take. The video consists of hidden camera shots of workers in Conklin Dairy Farms in Plain City, Ohio, brutalizing the cows in the facility. The images are deeply troubling. Workers punch calves in the face and kick them in the head. Pitchforks are used to jab various parts of cows. Cows in too much pain to stand (from the savage beating they've endured at the hands of these thugs) are kicked repeatedly. Workers whack cows with crowbars, snap their tails, and they joke about their ability to beat the shit out of (and sometimes kill) innocent, defenseless calves.
Conditions in dairy facilities often leave a lot to be desired, but the ones in Conklin Dairy Farms are particularly brutal. Dr. Bernard Rollin, distinguished professor of animal science at Colorado State University, had a difficult time watching the video and was horrified by what he saw. "This is probably the most gratuitous, sadistic, sustained animal abuse I have ever seen," he said. "The video depicts calculated, deliberate cruelty based not on momentary rage but on taking pleasure through causing pain to cows and calves who are defenseless." (Source.)
Dairy is as brutal as meat. This video shows the day-to-day violence of the factory farm system at its most extreme. In all likelihood, the workers who abused the cows and calves at Conklin are family men - loving husbands and fathers - who aren't earning much money and walking the tightrope to make ends meet. My purpose here is not to dehumanize them. No, my purpose is to show how the factory farm system dehumanizes good people. And make no mistake: It is a system that asks us, the consumers, to look the other way at the shocking treatment of animals.
Even in dairy facilities where workers do not abuse the cows and calves, these poor animals live lives in cold, sterile and unnatural conditions. And when they can no longer give milk, they're not handed a gold watch and allowed to go off and enjoy the sun in some lovely pasture. They meet the same end as all animals in the factory farm system.
So it's not just a matter of ending the abuse at Conklin Dairy Farms in Ohio, although that's a good start. The real goal is to bring a halt to the factory farm system and recognize that we human beings do not have the right to do what we are doing to farm animals.
Going vegan - thereby reducing demand - is a good place to start.
