Jain Study Center NC Raleigh 1997 11 YJA Regional Convention

Author(s): Jain Study Center NC Raleigh
Publisher: USA Jain Study Center NC Raleigh

Page 93

My Visit to A Dairy Farm
Pravin K. Shah Jain Study Center of NC
I visited a dairy farm located on Route 2 north of Burlington, Vermont (USA) in May of 1995. The dairy owns about 150 cows and supplies all its milk to Ben and Jerry for ice cream. Ben and Jerry Company does not own this dairy.
Here is the summary of what I saw and learnt:
It was milking time (5:00 PM) and the machine was milking the cow at 3.5 minutes per cow, without regard to how hard it was on the cow. It was extremely difficult for me to watch the cows' sufferings during the milking. The machine has no feeling. To extract the last drop of milk, sometimes traces of blood gets mixed with the milk.
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Every morning hormones or drugs are injected into the cows to increase their milk yields.
Since cows produce the most milk after pregnancy, they are kept pregnant for their entire fertile life through artificial insemination.
The pregnant cow delivers a baby after 9 months same as human does. If a male calf, of no use to the dairy industry, is born, he is shipped to the veal industry within two or three days of birth. The evening I was there, the farm was shipping three baby calves in a truck to a veal factory. The mother cows were crying when their babies were separated from them. I cannot forget the scene and can still hear the cries of the mother cows.
The veal industry is the most cruel meat industry in the world. It produces very tender meat for delicacy meal. The baby calves are raised in the darkness in a very confining crate, which allows practically no movements, and are fed an iron-deficient diet. This way the meat gets very tender and properly textured. They slaughter the baby calves after six months. There is enough literature available about the cruelty in the veal industry.
Within two months of delivery, the cows are made pregnant again. I did not have the stamina to watch the process of artificial insemination that the farm was showing off to us.
About four to five times a year, this farm would take the cows outside for a walk. Otherwise, the cows are tied in one place and they have no choice but to defecate where they are confined. It badly stunk when I was there; the farm would wash the confinement areas once or sometimes twice a day, and the remaining times the cows would then live in their own waste.
The life expectancy of cows is about 15 years. However, after 10 years, their milk production drops significantly so these cows are sent to the slaughterhouse for meat.
I also visited a dairy farm near Bombay in India in November 1996. I observed similar things; overall, things were actually probably worse because there are few enforced regulations.
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