Dairy farmers are not the personification of evil

The advert condemning dairy farming is ignorant of the care that goes into this valuable tradition

If the current row over dairy farming was solely about a small pressure group, using language so emotive that it is almost combustible, putting out an advertisement claiming that the practice is inherently inhumane, the whole thing would surely have petered out by now. It has become the norm for the intolerant to scream their opponents into submission before moving swiftly on to the next target.

Yet the internet is awash and the airwaves are resonating with this debate. Either a single vegan pressure group, Go Vegan World, set up in memory of a dead hen, has exposed a deep ethical divide in our nation, or this is the thin end of the wedge, wherein a minority view is being passed off as that of the majority, in which those of us who are meat and dairy eaters or, God help us all, dairy farmers, are depicted as cruel and exploitative.

The advertisement, which the Advertising Standards Agency has ruled acceptable, uses language little different to that you would find after a quick Google search on dairy farming, with references to “babies” and “crying” when talking about calves and cows. What it describes bears little relation to what really goes on. Some seem not to realise that we farmers care passionately about our animals, and that our livelihoods depend on their health and happiness. It is no wonder a woman rang me, some months ago, to see if her daughter (considering veganism) could come and talk to us, on our small dairy farm, to be reassured that our farm animals actually have a decent life.

One of the advert’s implications is that we dairy farmers simply ignore the ethical debates. Yet on the regular occasions I bed the calves down with straw, I often think about these very issues. These calves (which, incidentally, in our system stay with the mother for a month after birth, rather than the usual 12-24 hours) run and jump and seem to enjoy kicking their legs and head-butting the straw. I worked as a nurse in the past, and these animals meet their end in a cleaner and quicker way than, sadly, a lot of people.

I am not a scientist, but I know that our cows, and the manure they produce, enable an environment on our farm where 53 types of bird have been identified, and people have seen hares, deer, lapwings, skylarks and so many wild flowers that I would need my flower book to identify them. In the area where we live, there are farms where young people who struggle with school, people with learning disabilities and people with mental health problems have found solace, peace and honest hard graft in the non-judgmental company of farm animals.

Be wary of what you throw out and dismiss when you turn your back on what we have been doing for centuries. People with extreme views about the evils of livestock farming promote farms without stock. A farmyard without animals is an anomaly. Calves and lambs would be bred, if at all, for novelty value. Hedges would not be maintained and, with their disappearance would go the shelter and habitat of numerous mammals. Many more would be killed in the production of the vast amounts of grain and vegetables needed to feel humankind.

If a person decides to be vegetarian or vegan, that is fine by me. What is not so fine is to be depicted as inhumane because my world view is not the exact same as theirs. When a farmer and a vet work hard into the night to help a farm animal survive, it isn’t all about the dosh, you know. When we take an amateur video of the cows going out in spring, we do not do it because we hate the animals.

There are certainly questions about farm animals’ rights and our dominion over them. In a campaign like this, though, I see moral superiority and blind rejection of an agricultural tradition, not a nuanced consideration of the ethics.

The reason I say this is that those of us who are doing our best to farm in a sustainable way, which is as caring as possible to both the environment and animals, are probably the biggest thorn of all in the side of groups like Go Vegan World. They don’t want compromise, they don’t want farmers who are trying as hard as possible to do a good job. They want us gone from the face of the earth.