Dairy Cows - The True Cost of Milk

I was sitting thinking about what to write for this month's newsletter. Christmas is coming and I could do something about the plight of our poor intensively reared turkeys...but, with the help of the lovely Mr Dick Strawbridge, I did that last year. So what else could I do? Whilst I was mid ponder, an email plopped into my inbox and it was so sad it made me cry.

The email simply said ‘What am I?' with a close-up of a heavily eyelashed, almost glamorous, feminine eye. So naturally I clicked. And it led me to pictures of a suffering dairy cow with the statements...

'I am a mother.'

‘I am confined.'

‘I am in pain.'

‘I am a waste.'

Now you tell me who wouldn't be moved by that? Have a look for yourself.

Which led me to thinking. As part of our healthy diet we normally try to limit how much fatty dairy foods we eat but come the Christmas season, cream and cheese and all such delights are deemed fair game. Who hasn't had extra clotted cream on their mince pies? Or brandy butter on their Christmas pud? Or savoured a cheeseboard full of mouth-wateringly ripe cheeses?

Let's face it. Christmas can be a time for excess, and cream, butter and cheeses are all part of that.

But what about the cows that produce the milk that makes all these treats?

Call me naïve but I made a startling discovery about dairy cows. That is, they have to produce a calf to produce milk. Now I think about it, it is obvious but then I thought about our dairy cow in the advert and what happens to her and her calf. Why do we get to drink the milk that was destined for the calf?

And then I knew it wasn't going to have a happy ending.

A ‘normal' (not intensively farmed) dairy cow can live for 20 years. But dairy cows that are milked intensively (i.e. the ones that produce your supermarket milk) live for only a quarter of that. Why the drastically reduced lifespan?

As we have found out, a cow needs to have a calf to produce milk. Once she has given birth, the calf is allowed to suckle for a day or two before it is forcibly removed from its mother. As a mother myself, I can only imagine what this must do to them both. Reportedly the mother will call for her calf for days afterwards in the hope of finding it.

Calves would suckle five or six times a day but a cow is only milked twice a day, which leads to a build-up of milk in her udder, up to 20 litres, the weight of which protrudes unnaturally between her legs and is so heavy it can lead to lameness. Another health issue is mastitis (a painful infection in the udder). If you have had children yourself you may know how painful mastitis can be.

A cow's milk dries up after about nine months, so three months after the birth of her calf she will be artificially inseminated so that she produces another calf. In this way she will produce as much milk as possible, usually for seven months out of twelve.

After this whole process has happened three or four times, our poor dairy cow is unsurprisingly exhausted and is no longer of use to the farmer. She is then transported, often on a long journey in cramped and stressful conditions, and killed, her meat being sold. She is no more than a waste product.

What about the calves?

If what happens to our dairy cow isn't enough to break your heart, the fate of her calves probably will.

Once forcibly removed from the mother, the female calves are taken into tiny stalls where they can't socialise with other calves and have very little room to move about or lie down. They aren't fed their mother's milk (oh no, we get that) but, absurdly, a milk replacer. Once they reach 15 months old, they are artificially inseminated and the whole traumatic process starts for them.

But what about the male calves? Well the lucky ones, arguably, are shot at a few days old. They are an unwanted by-product of the dairy industry and of no use (except to their mothers but they don't have a say). Other, not so lucky male calves are reared as beef cattle (if they are a beef/dairy crossbreed) and taken on long journeys at as young as seven days old to livestock markets. The really unlucky ones though are the dairy calves that are shipped to Europe, where they are raised in appalling conditions (so bad they are banned in the UK) before being slaughtered for veal. At one stage the banning of live exports gave a dim light of hope for these poor souls, but a Westminster bright spark saw fit to reverse the ban, so these babies are driven across Britain and then Europe whilst alive, terrified and suffering, before meeting their fate.

The effect of cows on the environment

Animal welfare issues aside, cows have a detrimental effect on the environment. A dairy cow produces around 142kg of methane gas per year. To produce one litre of milk requires 990 litres of water and produces 1kg of carbon dioxide. So as each dairy cow in the UK produces an average of 7,000 litres of milk per year, that's 7,000kg of carbon dioxide and 6,930,000 litres of water. So quite simply the fewer cows, the less the environmental impact.

What can we do?

An easy answer would simply be to stop drinking milk. There is plenty of advice and tips on the Vegan Society website along with recipes, advice on milk substitute products and more information on animal welfare. Soya and other non-dairy milks, in particular Oatly which is made from oats and has less environmental impact than soya milk, are now readily available in supermarkets as well as heath food shops. However, the problems I find with other vegan dairy substitutes are that they are not readily available, the range is limited and, in my opinion, the taste is often not sufficiently good for them to be a viable alternative to dairy and tempt the ‘swaying' consumer to switch from dairy products. Ideally, companies producing vegan alternatives would provide products that taste as good as, if not better than, their dairy equivalent, that would be available in all major shops, and be sold at a price that appeals to the new consumer. Then, and only then, will a switch to non-dairy for the many, as opposed to the current strong-willed few, be possible. Vegan food manufacturing companies... over to you.

If you find becoming vegan too difficult with the current alternatives, there is still something you can do. Switch to organic dairy products. Buying organic milk and milk products is not really the answer as our dairy cow still suffers in the production of milk. However, by buying organic you are at least ensuring that her welfare and health standards are better and by buying Soil Association Organic you are also ensuring the male calves have not been exported. This is not ideal by any standards but with campaigning and pressure from animal welfare groups, things are slowly improving. By shopping wisely, you can help make a difference.

So as always, consumer power may be the key to improving the lives of our poor dairy cows. In an industry motivated by money and not animal welfare, the most effective way to make our point is to hit the industry where it hurts most. In their pockets.

Websites that may be of interest to you are:
www.ciwf.org.uk/
www.viva.org.uk/
www.vegetarian.org.uk/
www.milkmyths.org.uk/

Vegan food producers we recommend:
www.plamilfoods.co.uk/
www.provamel.be/
www.redwoodfoods.co.uk/

 Jo

Mother and calf photo (c) Iain Alexander 2009

Calf photo (c) Joe Napper 2009

Brown calf photo (c) iLoveButter - www.everystockphoto.com

Oatly (c) www2.Oatly.com