EXPIRED: The UK Calf Trade
This week we’re highlighting the many lies told by the dairy industry, but we’re not the only ones working hard to shed light on this system of exploitation. We’re very pleased to welcome to Surge Media our friends at Animal Justice Project and Senior Campaigner Ayrton Cooper - their EXPIRED campaign made national headlines for revealing the truth behind apparently ‘kinder’ calf rearing operations in the UK.
One of the most well-known and shocking facts that vegans share regarding the dairy industry is that male calves are considered a ‘by-product’ and are often killed within hours or days of birth. In 2015 it was found that 95,000 male dairy calves were killed on farm. A further 3,446 calves were exported overseas through Ramsgate in 2019. With well over one million calves born on dairy farms each year, where are the majority of them going? What is the ‘kinder option’ for calves?
A large proportion of the females will remain on dairy farms – often singly kept in calf hutches in their first weeks of life – to replace their ‘spent’ mothers once their milk productions decreases. They will enter the same cycle of exploitation; repeated pregnancies and milking, until their bodies can no longer take it. But the males are still relatively worthless to dairy farmers. Traditionally, it can cost more to raise a male calf than what the farmer will gain in return. Here is where the calf traders come in. Large animal traders such as Meadow Quality and Buitelaar trade in tens of thousands of calves each year. They source many thousands of them from dairy farms and utilising their own collection centres, distribute them throughout their rearing units and finally on to fattening beef farms. This is mass-scale exploitation of babies.
With a large number of calves being traded through the dairy and beef systems, this has created a widespread integration of the two industries. They are heavily reliant on each and are becoming one. 50-60% of the British beef herd consists of dairy calves. These trading companies are key to this integration as well as dairy companies such as Arla. Arla’s ‘360’ programme enables dairy farmers to sell calves into the calf rearing units of Buitelaar, which in turn supplies ‘rose veal’ to Morrisons and beef to McDonalds. This is a booming industry and is turning over millions of pounds each year on the back of exploiting vulnerable babies.
Our EXPIRED campaign has highlighted the mass-scale exploitation of calves in the UK and the major links between the dairy and beef industries. Huge rearing farms such as Badgers Cross in Somerset and fattening farms such as Berryfields Farm in Northants operate on mass-scale. Both raise up to 4,500 individuals each year. ‘Mega farms’ hold thousands of animals at a time and are on the rise in the UK – nearly 800 were counted in 2017. It is the industrialisation of rearing calves which has enabled them to become profitable. Once weaned, they are often fed high concentrate feeds and in the case of Berryfields Farm, enter a zero-grazing system where they are unable to naturally graze and live in concrete pens. This feed fattens them at a faster rate than on traditional beef farms and individuals are slaughtered from just 12 months old.
Our investigation looked at two farms. At both sites, abuse was commonplace. Individuals were kicked, punched, slapped and hit with sticks. Gates and bars were slammed onto their delicate legs and backs. They were verbally abused on a daily basis. The conditions were abhorrent – the ‘hospital pen’ home to the sick and lame was shockingly bad. No fresh bedding, mounds of faeces and builds ups of slurry. Lameness caused many cows to suffer and they were left without no apparent medical intervention for months. 23 DEFRA and Red Tractor standards were broken during our filming. These farms are not unique. With each investigation, the reality for farmed animals becomes clear. Farms, welfare labels, supermarkets and the UK Government fail animals. There is no ‘kinder option’ for these male dairy calves. We must push for an end of these industries completely and promote plant-based food systems and a vegan lifestyle.
Ayrton Cooper BSc Zoology is Senior Campaigner at Animal Justice Project, caregiver to a wonderful gang of rescued animals numbering in the dozens, and activist with the long-standing grassroots group Nottingham Animal Rights. Visit the EXPIRED campaign page at www.expiredcampaign.org/calftrade where you can also donate to their efforts.