Cows on the Road, Milk on the Table



Healthy Cow and Calf. Photo: CIWF



Milk has been worrying me a lot recently. And cheese. And yoghurt.

I was driving along the country lanes on my way to pick up my son from the bus stop in the next village (yes, we're very rural here - there is a a bus stop in our village but buses themselves are as rare as hen's teeth) when I found myself behind a herd of cows. They don't walk fast, cows, in fact they don't have any sense of urgency at all, so I had plenty of time to have a good look at them. And frankly, I was appalled.

There were cows which were covered with sores all over their rear ends. Cows with large, unpleasant and very uncomfortable-looking growths on their undersides and hindquarters. Cows whose rears were completely caked in runny excrement. Cows with udders so swollen with milk that they looked as if they might burst, but with so little flesh on their bodies that it looked as if their bones were on the outside of their skin. Cows which could barely walk: several were badly lame in one leg, some were having problems with more than one. They looked unhealthy. They appeared to be in pain. They looked horrific.

Photo: CIWF

Of course I was trailing the slower cows of the herd. Maybe the rest of them were gambolling along at the front, full of the joys of the season, sleek with health and content with their lives. But even if they were, the poor laggers weren't. And it wasn't just a couple of unhealthy cows I saw - there must have been more than a dozen I could see which had something wrong with them.

These were dairy cows. These are the cows that provide the milk that most of us drink every day. How can we live with the fact that our milk might be coming to us as a result of such animal misery?

Compassion in World Farming has highlighted the following areas of concern:

Lameness, Mastitis and Infertility

Milk is heavy and a dairy cow may be carrying several extra kilos of milk in her udders. This can force her hind legs into an unnatural position, making walking difficult, and can result in lameness. It can also make standing and lying down difficult and uncomfortable.

Mastitis is a painful udder infection that is prevalent among dairy cows. In a herd of 100 cows in the UK, there could be as many as 70 cases of mastitis every year on average. Housing cows for long periods can also increase the prevalence of mastitis.

Infertility among high yielding dairy cows is increasing. It has been linked to stress, poor body condition and the demands of high milk production on the cow’s general health.

I could see all of this in the cows I was following. The report goes on to talk about housing and diet. I don't know how these cows were housed, but I suspect that they weren't in green fields all the time, and this was causing some of the issues with lameness in the feet. And as for diet:

The diet of high yielding cows often has relatively little fibrous content and is inappropriate for their type of digestive system. This leads to acidity in the part of the stomach, known as the ‘rumen’. This can lead to acidosis and painful lameness from laminitis.

These cows looked as if their diet wasn't at all suitable for health. A healthy cow will produce healthy cowpats, not be caked in its own excrement.

What Can I Do? What Can You Do?

Buy Organic milk, cheese and other dairy products.  Organic standards require dairy cows to have access to pasture during the grazing season. They require cows to be fed a more natural diet with plenty of roughage. This promotes more sustainable milk yields.

If you can't afford to buy Organic all the time, buy it when you can. Look out for producers that have been awarded the Good Dairy Award for higher welfare in dairy farming. Or products that have the RSPCA's Freedom Food logo. Don't be taken in by the idyllic television ads. Life isn't like that for most cows.

Ask your retailer about the grazing practices of their milk supplier. Even if a supplier is not organic, it can still have the welfare of its animals at the heart of its production. Yarty Valley Dairies, for instance, supplies milk to our local shop, so I can feel confident about popping in for a pint on spec. The farm is not organic, but the welfare standards are high.

Tell your friends and family. People often buy things unthinkingly. Just raise awareness. But don't make them feel guilty. If someone is struggling to make ends meet, as many are in the present economic climate, they are not going to thank you for insisting that cows are more important than feeding their family.

And look at these happy cows, filmed by Compassion in World Farming. Healthy cows, dancing in the fields - something which those cows I saw couldn't even have attempted to do.

Happy Shopping

A year ago, along with my daughter Natasha, I went to my first TED conference: TEDxExeter. I came away full of enthusiasm and inspiration, fired up by ideas from speakers as disparate as Bandi Mbubi who talked passionately about conflict minerals in the Congo, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall who told us the story of his love for fish, and Satish Kumar whose message was about the interconnectedness of soil, soul and society. And two talks in particular - those of Nic Marks and Mike Dickson - addressed how we measure and achieve happiness. Nic Marks had cited some research carried out through the UK Government's Foresight Programme, in a study called Mental Capital and Wellbeing, which concluded that the happiness of individuals can be increased by following five simple guidelines. These are :

Connect
Be Active
Take Notice
Keep Learning
Give

One of the many things which had me thinking hard as I came away from the day was this idea of connectedness. Technology and social media allow us to be so connected in global terms, but we are not always so connected to our local community - in fact, this global interconnectedness can mask the lack of local contact. I FaceTime my sister in the Middle East, keep up with family members far and near via Facebook, and am in contact with writer friends all over the world, but I realised that I didn't have much social connection with many people in my immediate vicinity.Yet connecting in one's local area can have so many benefits, both for the individual and the community. How to start doing that more, though?

On our journey back home, Natasha and I decided that one thing we could do was to make more of an effort to shop locally rather than unthinkingly buy everything at the supermarket, even if the 'everything' at the supermarket was Fairtrade and organic, and the local produce might not always be. If through our custom we were supporting local producers it would help the local community, and that was a way of connecting with what was happening in our neighbourhood.

And, as a way of connecting more directly, I decided to volunteer to work at our local community shop. This was quite a scary decision. Whenever I went into the shop I felt like an outsider, despite the fact that we have lived in this village for over a decade. Everybody seemed to know everyone else, whereas I only knew a few people. And being quite a shy person, I found this rather intimidating - my fault, not anyone else's. However, one person I did know was one of the two shop managers, so at the Village Jubilee Street Party, I plucked up my courage and volunteered. I'd just been made redundant so I had some time on my hands, and it was a perfect opportunity to make that move towards connecting.

The Village Shop is a community-run enterprise, owned by the members, managed by committee, and staffed by volunteers. It has been running for nearly twenty years, so was way ahead of the Ambridge Community Shop in 'The Archers'! It's a great resource, stocking all the basics, plus locally produced meat, milk, bread, pies, cheese, the famous local Otter beer, local apple and speciality juices, homemade cakes, honeys and jams, handmade cards. Anyone who is a shop member can sell produce, which means that in the summer there is a great selection of veg and salad. There is a Post Office, dry-cleaning service, prescription pick-up service, and much more. And it stocks a range of Fairtrade items too! It really is the very model of a modern community shop. Of course, it relies heavily on the fact that there are people in and around the village with the time to do stints as volunteers. Until I suddenly had rather more time on my hands than I was expecting, I would have struggled to find the time to help out. However, if I had, I would have been a lot more integrated in the community!

Although, due to a series of unforeseen events I wasn't able to start working there as soon as I'd planned, I now have a regular shift on a Friday morning. I have yet to do a session without making some kind of mistake on the till, but I guess I'll  eventually get the hang of simultaneously chatting and pressing buttons. Because, you see, the chatting is also part of the job. Every week I meet new people, and the lovely Val, who is in charge on a Friday morning, makes sure I'm introduced.

I'm already feeling more connected. I feel good that I'm supporting the wider range of local businesses that supply the shop. I've met more local people. I'm giving my time. And yes, it has definitely had a positive effect on my mental well-being.

Of course I'm not doing all my shopping at The Village Shop - it hasn't quite got the range for that, and doesn't claim to. But the cakes are 'to-die-for', and I've met the woman who makes them! How's that for being a happy, connected shopper?

TEDxExeter - Ideas Worth Spreading

Ever seen a TEDTalk? If you haven't you should.  And tomorrow, I'm going to see some in the flesh at the TEDxExeter conference 'Living the Questions'. If anything can help one live a good enough life, it is exposure to brilliant and inspiring ideas.

Here's one to start you off:

Finding What's Lost

Last year I lost something. I lost poetry. I didn't read it. I didn't write it. I felt it had let me down. I hated my own book, felt that it didn't say what I had wanted it to say. It all felt false and self-indulgent. And by extension, all other poetry felt that way to me. It wasn't real to me any more. I tried writing fiction, but I couldn't stick at it - I didn't think I could justify the indulgence. My notebooks were full of shopping lists and phone numbers, notes from phonecalls and meetings with healthcare professionals and social care organisations and charities. There was no poetry there for me, no stories - at least, none I was prepared to share, even with myself, no narratives I wanted to explore, because I didn't want to explore what truths they might reveal. My mental space was so full - there was no room. And my day was too full, as well - what time I had was not there for the 'self-indulgence' of writing.

But just over a week ago, a post turned up on my Facebook Newsfeed. It was from The Poetry School, and was about NaPoWriMo. This is National Poetry Writing Month, and the challenge is to write something every day of the month of April. I really don't know why, but I decided to do it. There was nothing to lose. I hadn't written anything for so long, I would make the time. It was only for a month. And it didn't matter if I wrote rubbish.

I'm now eleven poems in, and have found how to write again. I'm even pleased with some of them!

Sometimes doing something on a whim can be a good thing.