This is the letter I had published in The New Zealand Herald this week. As long as I draw breath I will continue working for the rights of the other sentient beings we share this planet with. For more about bobby calves, see Andrew Johnstones audio recently posted on this page. I read your article “The Price of Milk”(6/9) with great interest. Something has to be done urgently about the environmental impact of dairying, and the government’s plan to double dairying exports by 2025 is indeed a huge worry. What your article didn’t factor in, however, is the cost to the animals in “the price of milk”. I have just watched a video put out by the dairy industry where “Rosie” the animated cow, educates children and their parents about dairy farming in New Zealand. This video is mind-boggling in its cynicism. I would like to make another video called “Bobby’s World – the short and excruciating life of a bobby calf”. My video will show how the dairy cow is kept pregnant (until she is spent, when she is sent to the works), her babies being taken from her shortly after birth. The unwanted ones (they are called bobby calves) are then sent on the stressful journey to the works, some as young as three days old and with their umbilical cords still attached. One and a half million bobbies per deprived of their mother’s nurturing (and the mother deprived of mothering) every year in New Zealand so we can drink milk. Now there’s a price to pay. The environmental impact of dairying can be solved if we begin to reduce (not expand) dairy farming, and begin the process of diversifying to crop agriculture.
Posted on: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 20:09:46 +0000