| This is a tough topic to write about, but someone's got to do it. All those happy Holsteins cracking-wise in the California cheese commercials aren't telling the whole truth. Dairy has a darker side.
The only way that the more or less continuous milk production necessary for a profitable dairy operation can occur is if the cows calve frequently. Female calves increase the productive herd, but male calves are routinely culled and end up as hot dogs and luncheon meats. That's the simple reality; and even if your diet is primarily vegetarian, if you drink milk or eat milk products (and I do) this is the system from which we derive our food.
That is why the news of repeated violations against the humane treatment of animals by Bushway Packing of Grand Isle, so very close to home, is deeply and profoundly disturbing to me. I could barely make it through descriptions of the abuses committed against infant cattle at the facility, let alone the video footage compiled by the Humane Society of the United States who investigated the plant. If these animals must be killed so that dairy farms can maintain their already marginal profitability, there is absolutely no excuse for mistreatment of the calves on their way to slaughter.
I have no doubt that dairy farmers who care for the animals they raise find this as appalling as I do; but it does force the question once again of whether or not we are devoting too much of our resources to raising animals for food and not enough to growing sustainable food crops. When our food systems get really far out of whack is it really so surprising that the ethical and social fabric of human decency begins to fray from neglect?
Anyway, visit the Humane Society website for the full story...if you can bear it. |
250-1
75-1
