Opinion
FARMERS WEEKLY – farmersweekly.co.nz – July 27, 2020
27
Are your cows your beauties or your beasts? Shirli Notcovich
I
T HAS been a very exciting news week for the dairy industry. The New Zealand Dairy Industry Awards prizegiving held on 4 July and two previous Global Dairy Trade price increases have provided a boost in confidence and positivity, bringing a breath of fresh air to the industry. Consumers are also seeking healthy, New Zealandmade food that will help restore our economy earlier than other countries. It hasn’t all been positive, though. Some of the optimistic news and celebration of the awards has been overshadowed by one of the winners being stripped of his title after tweets he had made years ago referencing ill treatment of animals resurfaced, which consequently led to increased media coverage around the need for more animal welfare regulation and laws to protect animals from exploitation. And it is not news that things are changing. Consumer preferences show that people are more aware of what’s on their plates and in their glasses than ever. They want to know where their milk is coming from, how and where the cows were living and if they were happy while being milked. Things are changing so fast that it makes it hard to catch up, and the dairy industry is no exception to the wave of change. Public requests for more sustainable practices and reduced environmental footprints are being heard and new regulations
The
Pulpit AWARE: Dairy farmers need to be more conscious about how they produce and why, Shirli Notcovich says.
are now well in place. An example of that is the launch of the zero-carbon milk which comes with “carbon credits” that has apparently been well received by consumers. However, there is a piece still missing in this puzzle. Talking about what the dairy industry is doing and treating the industry as an unknown third party is not the right approach. Who is the dairy industry? Every single dairy farmer and every single person working in and with the industry is. The dairy industry in New Zealand is formed mainly by cooperatives and that puts a layer of responsibility on everyone. Clear examples from the past can show us how fast perceptions can change in our society and how things that may have been deemed normal and acceptable 10 or 20 years ago, is now unacceptable.
People who have read about the removal of the prize earned by the Tararua farmers as part of a “cancel culture” are misreading the news. There is a lot more to think and do here: Have you ever lost your temper with a cow or calf? Have you got any on-farm practice that you think wouldn’t look right if seen by an animal welfare activist? What would your vet think about it? It is not about demonising anyone here but at the end of the day it makes no sense to produce milk if people are not going to buy it because of doubts about mistreatment or suffering of animals.
We are at risk of getting to that stage. However, we still have time to make the right decisions in order to keep producing milk without being judged or prosecuted. We should demonstrate that we don’t need to get prosecuted to make the right decisions to bring the changes forward. This is the opportunity for us to learn to be better, calmer, caring, more present and respectful milk producers. We need to reflect on this story, learn to be more conscious about how we produce and why. Let’s start to embrace other people’s perspectives without
losing our aim: to produce good quality milk with the best health benefits for everyone: cows and humans. Are your cows your beauties or your beasts?
Who am I? Shirli Notcovich is a PhD student investigating new alternatives for mastitis prevention in dairy cows
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