Former dairy farmer goes vegan after coming to terms with role she played

Former dairy farmer, Jessica Strathdee worked with her husband on a farm in Canterbury, New Zealand that housed 600 dairy cows. Her guilt started to grow once she became a mother herself and she described how she would hear the cow in labour pains all night, then watch her partner come along and take the babies away from their mother. She described herself as an ‘ignorant meat and dairy consumer’ when she arrived at the farm, and was initially proud of her role in the industry.

In an interview with stuff.co.nz, she said “I just looked at the pen full of babies covered in afterbirth, their navels still bloody, and thought f**k, these are real babies”. She went onto to say “I realized what it took to get the milk. They weren’t machines, they were babies who wanted their mums”

Activist & Vegan

Jessica left the farm with her partner, and they have both switched to a vegan lifestyle. They now have two children. She is working towards a degree in politics and social policy and is a prominent animal right activist who gives regular speeches about her past experiences.

Speech

In one of her speeches she said ” The most important part of my story, is that while dairy farming I myself was a breastfeeding mother. I am still a breastfeeding mother and i will never take that job or honour to be able to nourish my child from my own body lightly after what I’ve seen in the industry”

“So thats 2,300 babies whose mothers were denied the right to fee their young. And that’s something that haunts me to this day because I was responsible. It is the reason I will never stop talking about the dairy industry and the horrors that go on in the industry”. You can  watch the full video here: http://https://www.facebook.com/FreeFromHarm/videos/1184828881710083/

Dairy Industry

In the dairy industry, cows are impregnated and give birth each year so they will continuously produce milk the farmers can sell. Newborn females will suffer the same fate as their mother where they are constantly impregnated so they will produce milk and eventually go to slaughter once milk output decreases. The male calves are  considered worthless to the dairy industry because they do not produce milk, so they are separated from their mothers and sold at low prices to veal producers. Even if you refuse to eat veal but still consume dairy products, you are supporting both industries.

Live Exports From Ireland

New Zealand is the 4th largest exporter of dairy milk. Another country that has a large dairy industry is Ireland, which  makes 4 billion Euro per year from dairy alone. In 2018, around 140,000 unweaned male calves were exported from Ireland, most going to France and the Netherlands to be raised and slaughtered for veal. This meat was exported from France and Netherlands mostly to Spain and Italy. Ireland will have as many as 800,000 unwanted male baby calves in 2020 which is knows as the Irish Agricultural Press as a “calf tsunami”. According to The Irish Times, a 2018 report on farm animal welfare the European Court of Auditors noted Ireland was guilty of infringing calf transport rules. A 2016 investigation by Compassion in World Farming showed that some journeys were lasting over 27 hours (sometimes up to 50 hours) in cramped conditions with no drinking facilities. In May 2019, footage taken at a French control post in Cherbourg by animal activist group Eyes on Animals, appeared to show calf mistreatment. Slaughter conditions are also a concern in non-EU countries. Many animals die during the trip, and for those who survive, they are kept in tiny crates for up to 6 months before being slaughtered for their flesh.