Cows Belong in Fields – a crucial campaign
For anybody who has been wondering what I am currently up to…and why the blog hasn’t been updated so frequently lately…
In September 2010 I took on one of the most complex ongoing campaigns in the UK – the campaign against Nocton Dairies.
Working as a campaign manager for Compassion in World Farming, I have been fighting hard to keep CAFO-style farming – which has done so much damage to the environment and public health in the US – out of the UK. The current proposals for the UK’s first so-called ‘mega-dairy’ are to house 3,770 cows indoors all year round, with almost no access to pasture. Cows kept under such conditions are prone to a range of health problems in their short, exhausting lives. If the proposal, which is still being deliberated by local planning officers in rural Lincolnshire, goes ahead, and is a success, the owners intend to keep more than 8,000 cows in the same conditions in this grim-sounding industrial facility. Giving the go-ahead to Nocton Dairies also opens the door for more of these unacceptable factory farms here in the UK.
The campaign against Nocton Dairies is a particularly challenging one. So far the local council has received more than 16,000 objections to the proposal, including a damning letter of objection from the UK’s Environment Agency. But as any campaigner will tell you, it’s not over ’til it’s over. There is still a great deal to do.
As it has gone on it has become clear that this isn’t just a local issue, as the UK’s farming ministers keep insisting. It goes right to the heart of animal welfare, sustainable livestock farming, the economics of dairy farming, the role that supermarkets have in controlling those economics and the intersection of environment and agriculture. It touches on consumer behaviour, ethical food choices and even on the concepts of healthy and sustainable eating now and in the future. The Nocton Dairies campaign is a testing ground for all of these issues and stopping it means that a lot of people are going to have to find the wisdom and the will to do the right thing. Here’s hoping…
You can read a bit of the background to this issue here. Find out more about the Compassion in World Farming’s Cows Belong in Fields campaign here. Find out what local campaigners CAFFO (Campaign Against Factory Farming Operations) are up to here.
