Mega Dairies? No Thanks!
It is also encouraging
to know that a number of MPs across all parties have expressed concern at the
plans by Nocton Dairies to build a vast factory
complex housing up to 8000 cows. The cows would be kept indoors for most of
their lives: “zero grazing”. This “farm” would be the first of its kind in
This reduces cows to the
level of machines, and deprives them of opportunity for any kind of normal behaviour. Cows bred for very high milk yields (more than
10,000 litres per annum compared with around 7,000 in
conventional dairy farms) are at risk from mastitis, lameness, and bacterial
infections. They are exhausted after three or four lactations and are
slaughtered when they are about 5 years old.
Quite apart from the
animal welfare issue, such mega-dairies are likely to drive small farmers out
of business by driving down dairy prices to a level that they aren’t able to
compete with. Many are already struggling. As Compassion in World Farming
points out, a litre of orange juice costs £2.20, and
a litre of milk 74p; a pint of beer is £3.50 while a
pint of milk is 45p. The appeal of cheap milk seems obvious, and yet a recent
(June 2010) survey conducted by MORI for the World Society for the Protection
of Animals (WSPA) found that three in five adults questioned said they would
not buy milk produced in huge dairy sheds.
To date 74 MPs have
signed Early Day Motion 942 (Not in My Cuppa and Cows
Belong in Fields campaigns).
For more information on Nocton’s proposal, and on welfare of farm animals in
general, see:
Compassion in World
Farming’s website www.ciwf.org.uk
WSPA’s website http://notinmycuppa.com
Friends of the Earth
have produced a briefing, Factory farming’s hidden impacts, which you
can download:
http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/factory_farming.pdf