Dairy Diary

The bovine-love of an organic farmer

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Rachel
• Gibson
• Milk
• Cows
• Organic
• Whistle
• Spiky
• Malton

[orbit15]

nice video, good cows, thanks. B

[hipflasks]

Of course, all this jollying furthers the urban myth that the countryside is somehow a place for city people to aspire to - lambs, birdsong, a gentle way of life for humans, etc etc.

[hipflasks]

In reality it is a place of enormous poverty where wealthy urban incomers sleep and often little else - their cars go to main dealers in towns, they shop at supermarkets but feel the right to take over parish councils.

Nearly all farmed land is regularly sprayed with chemicals which frequently drift into back gardens (cancer is only one nasty result) and animals are routinely fed growth-promoting hormones, pesticides and anti-biotics to hide their poor health.

[hipflasks]

Half of all cows born to support the dairy industry are males, therefore useless to a dairy farm. They are slaughtered at birth or sent almost immediately to veal farms, frequently in Europe.

The likes of Hugh F-W and Jamie Oliver are slowly revealing the truth of intensive food production whilst simultaneously promoting the romantic myth of the countryside -- before urbanisation people regarded the country as a wild, unpleasant place.

[hipflasks]

It was the likes of Ruskin and Wordsworth who helped create today's perceptions, which have all but priced local people out of their own communities and created a situation where the middle manager commutes from the country to the city and the stockherd or fisherman commutes in the opposite direction.

Western civilisation's obsession with eating lots of dead animals has created a countryside which groans under the pressure and a human population which struggles to maintain reasonable health.

[hipflasks]

Supermarkets have learnt how to cream off the farming subsidies which mean only very large and 'efficient' farms can make a reasonable living. UK government policy favours these farms because of this efficiency -- how this contrasts with France, a country as advanced and cosmopolitan as the UK but which has spurned American business practice in the countryside.

[hipflasks]

That hedgehog looked like it needed crutches before being squashed! Top video, all that was missing was Lesley (Judd) or John (Noakes) in a piece to camera. Jimi, Bidi Baxter would be proud of you!!!

[hipflasks]

It really did remind me of BBC children's tv in the seventies before dumbing down started - good production quality, informative, clear and witty presentation with something for everyone: "every time the cows take drugs it is recorded..." - pure magic! Visions of local plod and his notebook, dutifully recording the offence; "as Rosemary struggled to get up, her friends offered her more of the aforementioned substance".

[hipflasks]

The bit playing down human health is equally magical - anyone with their wits about them hunts down this sort of milk because the benefits of consuming unadulterated food ARE so enormous and well-recorded.

Instead, Rachel manages to keep the 'elitist' tag firmly in the closet (as it should be regarding non-chemical farming) focussing instead on the benefits for e v e r y b o d y of responsible food production, whether or not you reap the first-hand beneficial effects by eating the produce.