Worrying Spread Of Mega-Dairies In UK

General Discussion
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Intensive dairy farms where the cows never get to go outdoors or roam freely - this is quite a big issue at the moment here:

[url=http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/the-controversial-mega-dairies-that-alarm-campaigners-and-divide-a-struggling-sector-of-british-a6744511.html]The controversial 'mega-dairies' that alarm campaigners and divide a struggling sector of British agriculture | The Independent | The Independent

I’m opposed to this, I believe that farmed animals are our responsibility every bit as much as our pets, and deserve to have the best lives possible prior to the time of their (ideally humane and fast) slaughter.

So, I’ve been wanting to do some work on this, I don’t have a LOT of time to spare but I wanted to get the topic out here, I’m NOT into doing any baneful work against the farmers involved as individuals, maybe more of a consciousness-raising kind of thing - for example, a report I read somewhere mentioned people will pay like £2.50 for bottled water, that’s all hype, and yet grudge paying over £1 for 2 pints of milk.

There are, of course, many worse things going on in the world etcetera, but if anyone’s interested in doing some work here, maybe with Hathor, or Lakshmi, or other spirits…? Thought I’d post it up and gauge the interest. :slight_smile:

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I’m in!

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I’ll help any way I can! :slight_smile:

4

Count me too…

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Been looking to be more ambitious with my magic.

I suspect stopping animal abuse on the other side of the continent is ambitious?

Seriously, ‘‘mega-dairies’’ are just stupid. That’s stupid.

Let’s put an end to this.

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Cool! I’ve got a few things to get on this week and will post some proposals soon, I think this requires a full moon (many lunar goddesses associated with cows) - but the next one is the Solstice, 20th, not sure quite what I have planned for that will also permit this - or, maybe just a Monday?

I’ll ask around with my spirits & update with what they say, and please do the same with yours if you wish. :slight_smile:

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[quote=“Lady Eva, post:6, topic:7842”]Cool! I’ve got a few things to get on this week and will post some proposals soon, I think this requires a full moon (many lunar goddesses associated with cows) - but the next one is the Solstice, 20th, not sure quite what I have planned for that will also permit this - or, maybe just a Monday?

I’ll ask around with my spirits & update with what they say, and please do the same with yours if you wish. :)[/quote]

Well, I just checked with Hathor.

She said ordinary Mondays were just fine, though it would be good to synchronize our times.

I know of your dealings with the turquoise goddess, and cows are sacred to her, aren’t they?

Plus her light side is the healing force and her dark side is the force of retribution(Sekhmet).

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I’m in also, It will be a Pleasure to Help the Cows!
I’m open to any idea,

I will talk to one of my Spirit Friend that i think would be glad to help on this

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This has been a big problem in the States for a long time now. I used to work in a slaughter house and I can tell you the industry is fairly grim. Believe it or not 80% of the problems in the world are due to cattle farming. Watch the film Cowspiracy. Humans are destroying the world because they like the taste of meat and cheese. Insects out weigh humans 3 to 1 on the planet and they grow and reproduce faster than anything else can be easily farmed in comparison to large animals and without all the harm. And most insects are quite delicious tasting like everything from ham to shellfish to citrus fruits. Adding insects to the human diet could solve countless problems but modern humans are the biggest bunch of pathetic squeamish closed minded little bitches for that to happen. But I’m totally with you.

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With respect, that’s not necessarily correct - the author of the piece below, who promotoes a diet containing some red meat as beneficial for human health in most people, did the linking (on the source) but I’ve verified all this:

Grass-fed beef from rotationally-grazed livestock may actually save the planet

The popular arguments against the environmental merits of grass-fed beef are that it’s too inefficient. You simply can’t support enough animals on open grassland, certainly not enough to “feed the world.” Rotational grazing renders those arguments null and void. Here’s how it works:

You pack the animals close together on single paddocks. They graze intensively, not extensively. They eat everything on the paddock to which they’re confined, even the unpalatable but aggressive weeds, rather than range around nibbling their favorite foods all over.

After the paddock is clear, the animals move to the next one. They leave behind a wealth of nutrient-dense fertilizer that’s been stamped into the soil. Since the grass has been eaten, the roots die, decompose, and further enrich the soil.

By the time they circle back around to the original paddock, the grass has regrown and the soil is fully fertilized.

This isn’t a new way to feed herbivores. It’s how wild herbivores behave in natural settings. In the African savannah, zebras stick together to avoid big cats. In the Arctic, caribou gather in herds to avoid wolves. And the recent reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone actually restored the environment by promoting a kind of “forced rotational grazing” in elk.

Holistic management of livestock through rotational grazing has a ton of evidence in its favor, and more and more of your favorite farmers are adopting it. There’s a decent chance the local grass-fed beef you buy at the farmer’s market was raised using rotational grazing. If so, you’re helping.

… We kill fewer animals

Despite directly eating plenty of animals, folks on a Primal eating plan who eschew grains actually cause fewer animal deaths than grain-eaters. To get a few hundred pounds of cow meat, you kill one cow. It’s sad for the cow but actually saves more lives than you think. To get a few hundred pounds of wheat, you clear cut and plough the land to make room for the crop and destroy the habitats of resident wild animals, apply pesticides which poison surrounding wildlife, run a harvest combine that churns through dozens of rodents, rabbits, and reptiles unlucky-enough to be there that day, and set traps and use poison to keep rats and mice out of granaries. It’s estimated that grain agriculture kills 25 more sentient animals per kilogram of useable protein than beef agriculture in Australia, where beef is mostly range-grown.

Now, meat from industrially-raised livestock is not sustainable. I’m not arguing that.

Source with links to sources, which I can’t be bothered to format into this! http://www.marksdailyapple.com/8-ways-going-primal-can-help-the-environment/

Also, not remotely true about people, including Americans, being unwilling to eat bugs: http://www.tiny-farms.com/blog/a-third-of-us-consumers-likely-to-buy-insect-foods

Vegans and vegetarians mainly eat a starch-heavy diet low in saturated fats, then the natural craving for fat (an essential nutrient) will often drive them towards “junk food” made with processed vegetable oils, and this is the exact diet that’s created the booming obesity “epidemic” and thereby killed, often in torturous ways, millions of animals in vivisection labs in search for treatments for, for example, the rampant IBS brought on by consuming nutrient-poor high-starch diets, diabetes, cancer, and most obscenely, in the search for new un-food like low-cal artificial sweeteners, fats that don’t get digested, other drugs and supplements to bind fat and sugars, so the perpetually hungry, MSG-dosed insulin-resistant modern eater never has to feel a twinge of natural healthy hunger.

The common way to create digestive conditions in rats to test drugs, for example, is to inject capsaicin, acetic acid (vinegar) and other irritants directly into their colons, and observe the effect (if any) of the drugs on relieving the cramping, diarrhea, distress and poor appetite experienced by the animals, as well as post-mortem analysis of the colon material.

That’s just one example of how 40+ years of fucked-up dietary recommendations have created a sick society which is busily throwing any other species under the bus in search for a pill for the “bloating and discomfort” created by a high-starch diet laced with vegetable oils.

The “diaries of despair” are a distressing read for anyone interested in xeno-tranplantation, using organs from animals to replace the hearts and livers we knacker out with unhealthy diets, I don’t feel like depressing myself by going to there to link it, but it’s online for anyone who’s interested.

For those reasons, I think that the healthiest diet for humans (which the evidence suggests contains some animal protein, and saturated fat as a major fuel source) is best for both us, the planet, AND finally, animals themselves.

But anyway :slight_smile: - you do your thing, I was vegetarian for a few years and know the arguments very well, all that matters for the purpose of action (not gum-flapping!) is whether we share common ground on these dairies, I know they’re BAD in the USA (and pig farms are even worse) but this is a start, if we can get them rolled back here it stops this stuff looking like “the tide of progress,” which is a remarkably powerful theme to a lot of people.

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This has been completely debunked. Here’s an article that gives a good summary (with actual academic references.) There’s not just no evidence to support it’s better for the environment, there’s evidence against that.

I’m not going to argue that limiting animal protein is a good thing, but I have to disagree. Obviously, cutting down from three servings of meat a day to two or one is fantastic, but the human body doesn’t care where nutrients come from, only that it gets them. Meat and dairy may be denser in certain nutrients than plants, but it’s not impossible to get everything you need within a reasonable amount of calories. I would argue that, if possible (and it is), avoiding the industry completely is the best way to go, although maybe not ideal for some people.

I would hope that this ritual isn’t about the participants trying to enact macrocosmic change without enacting it on the microcosmic level.

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Do you think radically reducing the wild animal population would reduce carbon footprint? This might interest you:

In Defense of the Cow: How Eating Meat Could Help Slow Climate Change, again there are plenty of supporting links within that article and its footnotes.

And The Carnivore’s Dilemma, written by a farmer describing in detail the difference in impact between animals raised on pasture, and in intensive farming.

As with anything we can post “evidence” backwards and forwards all day, but it becomes pretty pointless, I’m not interested in telling people to get a goddamn steak on their plate! :o)

I would argue that, if possible (and it is), avoiding the industry completely is the best way to go, although maybe not ideal for some people.

I disagree, for the reasons stated above - a starch-based diet is harmful in the long run to most humans, as the shift away from saturated animal fat and towards both starch and vegetable oils has shown, with the damage done to millions of people through obesity, obesity-related illnesses, and metabolic syndrome over the past few decades, when animal fat got demonised and grains were promoted as the basis for a healthy diet.

Meanwhile vegans can’t even live without supplementing B12, and most vegetarian diets for people living in temperate or cool regions require imported foods - pulses, which don’t grow abundantly everywhere on the planet, avocadoes, nuts, seeds, and coconut oils for essential fats. Those things are not available 365 days a year around the globe - unlike, some form of meat, or fish.

Not to mention everyone’s favourite destroyer of forests, soy, an estrogen mimic and allergen that’s crawled across our entire food manufacturing system in recent decades, as the “ethical” and “green” replacement for meat in a lot of cases.

You can be a vegetarian and healthy, but it requires an ongoing amount of monitoring to balance proteins, and the most long-term vegetarian group on the planet (Brahmin Hindus) hold dairy products like ghee and milk to be sacred, demonstrating that animal fat is an essential nutrient - they may not get it from slaughtered meat, but they do require lactating cows, and that’s going to create male calves, and also, cows who are past their milking days…

I would hope that this ritual isn't about the participants trying to enact macrocosmic change without enacting it on the microcosmic level.

I’m not trying to dictate what the participants enact, except inviting people who care enough about the welfare of farmed animals, to prevent the uptake of inhumane mega-dairies in the UK? Vegetarians, vegans, fruitatrians - yay! Go you. :slight_smile:

This is magick, not religion, where the group’s morals must all be in agreement with some supposed “higher good” - my microcosm is in harmony, with a biologically appropriate diet, and a similar heartfelt concern for the wellbeing of animals within the farming system.

There’s no contradiction there for me, animals in the wild do NOT die painless and humane deaths, they tend to die from untreated disease, through shock, starvation & dehydration, often with their eyes pecked out while still alive, or suffocated or bled by predators, terrified and in pain… death is never pretty, but we do have the ability to make our farmed animals happy during their lives, with a good environment and the most humane death possible - as you know, I’m opposed to halal and kosher slaughter methods as well.

However,I didn’t specify that participants MUST think exactly like me to join in, simply that I’m opposed to this, and anyone who feels the same about these dairies, for whatever reason, is invited to join in, ask their spirits if this is something they want to get involved in.

If someone’s vegan, and they’re opposed to these dairies (as well as all others) that’s fine, I’m not trying to thought-police anyone here, that’s why I kept my opening post short and to the point.

So, given that we have our innately divine right to our own ethics and values in the wider world, with regards to doing some work to oppose these kinds of farms - you in, or out? :slight_smile:

Edit to add: Cowspiracy’s wildest claims debunked - by a committed vegan & climate activist (complete with “actual academic” links!) Cowspiracy: stampeding in the wrong direction?

And this, also looking at the dramatic differences between commercial feedlots and animals raised on pasture: Cowspiracy & The Building Blocks of an Absolutist Position.

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Back to the topic - a positive development, Organic industry sales put Monsanto’s to shame - "In the United States organic food sales have grown steadily at around 10 percent a year since the Great Recession (and at higher rates before that), which puts the stock market to shame.

In 2015 organic product sales revenue grew 11 percent, while the rest of the food market grew at a rate of 3 percent, according to the Organic Trade Association’s annual survey of the industry. Total sales reached $43.3 billion, which makes the organic industry a force to be reckoned with. For comparison, Monsanto brought in just under $15 billion in revenue last year, and Whole Foods brought a little over $15 billion."

People want good quality, safe foods they can feel good about, IMO the tide is in our favour. Waitrose, a major UK supermarket, recently committed to giving their dairy cows 100 days outdoors a year as a minimum: cows let out onto rain-saturated pasture churn the grass and it becomes inedible for a longer period, and it rains rather a lot in England…

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Edit to add: Cowspiracy's wildest claims debunked - by a committed vegan & climate activist (complete with "actual academic" links!) [url=https://newint.org/blog/2016/02/10/cowspiracy-stampeding-in-the-wrong-direction/]Cowspiracy: stampeding in the wrong direction?[/url]

And this, also looking at the dramatic differences between commercial feedlots and animals raised on pasture: Cowspiracy & The Building Blocks of an Absolutist Position.

Hang on I never mentioned “Cowspiracy.” I didn’t even watch it until a few weeks ago.

Here’s what I said…

…cutting down from three servings of meat a day to two or one is fantastic, but the human body doesn't care where nutrients come from, only that it gets them…I would argue that, if possible (and it is), avoiding the industry completely is the best way to go, although maybe not ideal for some people.

This isn’t an absolutist position. This is, “If you want to really avoid this completely, you can.” Cowspiracy is more along the lines of, “Do this, or we all die!” I may not have specifically brought up anything like Meatless Monday, or “weekday vegetarians,” but those are both perfectly legitimate examples of doing something, as opposed to nothing.

I’m still thinking about it, to be honest. I’m not convinced that calling on various gods or spirits, even as a group, will be effective if unless every participant involved is willing to do what they can in their own sphere, even if it’s just one seemingly insignificant thing.

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Finally after having asked the Spirit that i talked earlier in this Topic, I wont be able to Participate in this Group Ritual since the Spirit i asked said to me :
I have better things to do.

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I addressed Cowspiracy because it was raised by AdamThoth, and appears to have had a significant cultural impact - one that’s based on the shock-factor statistics it uses, which, as committed vegan and climate-activist Danny Chivers points out, are FALSE.

There’s a lot of hype about the evils of cow husbandry, people bandy round figures about gallons of water used up to create one burger (evidently forgetting that for grass-fed beef on sustainable farms, that water’s actually falling as rain, and also, prevented from causing flood and run-off of nutrients on managed pasture) so that factual inaccuracy and hysterial over-hyping, plus the deeper criticisms raised in the 2nd link, seemed worth drawing to people’s attention.

Herbivores exist within any eco system to restore fertility to the earth and prevent desertification, something that was evident when North America was populated with herds of buffalo, and the fertile parts of Africa with elephants, zebra, antelopes, etc - herbivores are nature’s friend, not her enemy, just as predators also have an important role to play in a thriving eco system.

To cut to the chase, this is a black magick forum - you want a result, you do magick towards it, without all the public bellyaching over whether you’re a “good” enough person by whatever standard is currently fashionable.

Those tactics, conducted online where anyone can make any claims they want - or, more usually, humblebrag themselves into seeming like moral arbiters whilst vilifying everyone else, usually result in pointless drama - for the black magician, the alchemy is the direct contact with spirits, and my ethical slate is clean by my standards, an issue that I take very seriously.

I’ll leave the gesture activism, like “meatless Mondays” to others - goddammit, I was a full-time and 100% vegetarian (dairy only, usually organic - no meat, fish, eggs; no animal-derived stearic acid, gelatine, or even cochineal) for YEARS, and if I seriously felt that cutting out all animal products had merit or was simply better, I wouldn’t be “trying” to do it, making “baby steps” like life’s so hard for a poor little helpless person like me - I’d just stop putting the stuff in my shopping basket! lol

I dislike unnecessary animal cruelty and intensive farming, do not support them in any way in my own life - therefore, I intend to do something about this. That’s my point of origin, and my statement of intent.

That’s a valid position and has internal consistancy, and I’m working with a goddess who protected a meat-eating, cattle-rearing culture who had, afaik, no culture of venerating prolonged abstention from meat as morally superior.

Bbylon, I feel that, whilst your heart’s in the right place, you have basically created a straw-man here by implying that no-one (except perhaps yourself) is doing even “just one seemingly insignificant thing” - a straw-man fattened by your mentions of “three servings of meat a day” and I’m just not willing to engage with that, with any denials, rebuttals, or explanations.

You do what you believe to be correct in your own life, but I’m not asking you to judge me or my morals, especially since I have zero intention of explaining our choices, ethics, or trying to win your approval by saying “b-but I DO do this!” and so on.

I am SO over that kind of debate, I tolerated it for years as a white-lighter and honestly, it’s not where I’m at any more. :wink:

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Yeah, see, I’m not the one making a straw man here. You may be “so over” the debate, but I still have some fight in me, and it seems like I get the last word on this one, so I’m going to take it.

You originally said, and maintain, that you used to be a vegetarian, and know all the arguments. I don’t think like you used to, and to make the assumption that I do is a waste of time for both of us, since you’re not debating me at that point, you’re arguing with yourself.

I don’t give two shits about the cows. I really don’t. Tell me I’m an asshole; I don’t care about that either.

The arguments that you prepared yourself for were the typical emotionally driven arguments that usually come out, but I never made those. I spoke to people who were concerned about the conditions in farms, but that’s never been my issue.

In case it still isn’t clear, I’m not saying that everyone needs to go vegan or vegetarian. I did acknowledge it’s just not a reality for many people. I certainly don’t maintain a strict vegan diet.

There’s no grazing land for several hours drive, and what milk we do get is from one, maybe two, dairies in a different state, with its own laws and regulations. That may be the case for other people, particularly here in the US, and maybe they don’t have the luxury of being able to opt out of industrial dairy farms like you do, so I’m providing an option.

Maybe I should have used specifically dairy as an example, except the more common meat ones… But I stand by what I said: you can’t call on a spirit and expect it to do all the work for you. I still get a milkshake from the local ice cream shop once a month, and I’d be willing to give that up to show a spirit I was working with that I meant business. Again, just one seemingly insignificant thing; not doing much damage having it, not doing much help not having it.

You’re thinking of doing this ritual on a Monday, and presumably not every spirit called on will be from cultures where they revered and also slaughtered cattle, so Meatless Monday may be something someone would want to try, at least on a temporary basis. It’s hardly an unprecedented thing for a magician to change their behavior while working with a particular spirit… Which is the only reason I brought it up.

But, you all can do whatever you want. I’m out.

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Yes, Bbylon, you did, with this statement:

“I would hope that this ritual isn’t about the participants trying to enact macrocosmic change without enacting it on the microcosmic level.”

You just ASSUMED that “participants” - by which I believe you mean me, but whatever - are doing NOTHING except posting about some random dairy issue.

That, until you prodded us, we’ve never once thought about any OTHER changes we could make to honour whatever values we hold dear?

You know jack shit about me, about my ethics regarding animals and the environment, and I am not - as I said - going to lay those out or play Moral Wars by trying to “prove” to you that I in some way deserve to share some moral highground you set yourself up as the arbiter to define.

You may be “so over” the debate, but I still have some fight in me, and it seems like I get the last word on this one, so I’m going to take it.

I’m over trying to prove myself to keyboard warriors who don’t get the difference between magick, in which you act from Will, and religion, in which certain moral absolutes must first be thrashed out, and then agreed upon, by self-appointed moral police.

Vegans can, if they wish, join in this working, vegetarians can, carnivores who care about welfare can - hell, if someone on here gets off on rolling in cowpats and wants more of them in the fields, that also is fine.

Magick is about action, not trying to be the “rightest of the right.”

[b]I don’t give two shits about the cows.[/b] I really don’t.

This is becoming increasingly clear.

I do, and hey, isn’t life’s diversity a grand thing? :wink:

The arguments that you prepared yourself for were the typical emotionally driven arguments that usually come out, but I never made those.

Bbylon, I don’t even KNOW what you’re on about here, I addressed Cowspiracy because it was mentioned above and has been influential, I get that, I have no idea why you think you can mind-read me, mind-reading you… it’s ridiculous.

Stick to what’s typed on a screen, instead of this nonsensical “You think that I think that tra-la-la,” please?

I spoke to people who were concerned about the conditions in farms, but that’s never been my issue.

But as my OP and subsequent statements made clear, it’s mine, in this thread.

So, this is kind of a derailment, and though I think you’re trying to be true to some cause or whatever, you have just admitted to 1. not giving two shits about the cows, and 2. that farm animal welfare isn’t your issue.

So, what IS your purpose for posting in this thread, precisely?

But I stand by what I said: you can’t call on a spirit and expect it to do all the work for you.

If you can find the bit where I actually said that, fantastic!

I said I’d work WITH Hathor, as a link (is my intent) to the fundamental Cowishness of cows, something like that - their right to sunshine, gambolling around the fields (as they do in, for example, Waitrose and other good farms) - you’re just putting words in my mouth I never typed, here.

I still get a milkshake from the local ice cream shop once a month, and I’d be willing to give that up to show a spirit I was working with that I meant business. Again, just one seemingly insignificant thing; not doing much damage having it, not doing much help not having it.

We pay a premum price to buy organic (more than the 100 day pledge) from Waitrose, which I appreciate is gibberish to non-Brits but they’re basically a supermarket with consistantly high animal welfare standards, they win Compassion In World Farming’s awards time after time, they take that stuff seriously.

So do Yeo Valley (not cheap) and various farmer’s markets, all of which we buy from in preference to the cheap and cheerless stuff produced by cows in less fortunate situations.

I could, of course, save a substantial amount over a year by buying from economy supermarkets who don’t give a damn, or who buy imported processed cheese and stuff from countries with worse standards, but no.

So, the point I’m making, which your first presumptive post in here totally failed to factor in, is that since I care about animal welfare, I am already, for my household, buying the highest welfare animal products available.

And, you maybe can’t get that kind of thing where you live, and that’s sad, but you gotta survive, I get that - honestly this is a storm in a teacup.

You’re thinking of doing this ritual on a Monday, and presumably not every spirit called on will be from cultures where they revered and also slaughtered cattle,

Since I’m not sot setting myself up as Ethical Queen of this thread, I figured people could work that stuff out on their own, actually.

so Meatless Monday may be something someone would want to try, at least on a temporary basis. It’s hardly an unprecedented thing for a magician to change their behavior while working with a particular spirit… Which is the [i]only[/i] reason I brought it up.

No, you didn’t bring it by saying “hey, who’s on for adding Meatless Monday to this?” - which would have been fine - you posted “I would hope that this ritual isn’t about the participants trying to enact macrocosmic change without enacting it on the microcosmic level.”

That’s so passive-aggressive and arrogantly presumptive about what people may be already doing, that it just totally has nothing to do with any sacrifice YOU may be willing to make, and is all about setting yourself up to judge others.

But, you all can do whatever you want. I’m out.

Do as thou wilt.

I plan to, for sure! :slight_smile:

Happy farm animals are important to me, I invited anyone who feels the same to join in - you don’t give two shits about the cows, that’s your choice, go for it.

19

Score one for the bull!

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