Groups across Aotearoa took action on Sunday to commemorate Bobby Calf Awareness Day and the 2 millions calves killed every year by the dairy industry. Held on the final Sunday of August, during the peak of calving season, this day is intended to ignite discussion and drive meaningful action to address the unnecessary suffering of bobby calves.

In Taranaki, local activists highlighted the deadly reality behind dairy by adapting the iconic Fonterra Whareroa factory cow statue. Adorning it with a sign which read Dairy Kills, and covering it with fake blood, the locals intended this to be an eye-catching message for passing motorists.

“Despite dairy consumption being ubiquitous in our culture, the grim and deadly truth behind its production remains largely shrouded from public view.” stated Taranaki Animal Save spokesperson Elin Arbez. “Statistics from a 2017 Horizon survey found that shockingly, half of New Zealanders surveyed did not know a cow had to give birth to produce milk. More than 80% of those asked, vastly underestimated the number of bobby calves killed each year and 60% said they felt killing a four-day old calf was unacceptable.”

“Industrial dairying has an ugly history built on land theft and racist settler colonialism,” added Climate Justice Taranaki representative Tuhi-Ao Bailey. “Māori were forcibly removed from their land through the violence of land wars and the Native Land Court. Settler farmers were given land after volunteering as soldiers to remove Māori or bought it cheaply from the New Zealand government who had illegally confiscated it from Māori. From there millions of hectares of forest, wetland and waterways were destroyed to establish farms to feed the colonial export market. This literally cleared the way for colonial agriculture to amass wealth for the British empire and rich landlords.”

“To this day we still have less than 10% of our population owning most of our country. Those farms export 95% of their dairy products overseas, mostly as dehydrated milk powder for junk ‘food’. The processes for forcing impregnation of cows, removing calves from their mothers and slaughtering them within days is dripping in violence and abuse. This treatment of animals permeates out into rural communities in the form of sexism, abusive control behaviour and domestic violence as well as poor mental health, alcohol and drug abuse and the second highest rate of suicide of any industry in this country.”

“Dairy is of course our single biggest climate polluting industry and causes severe pollution to waterways, lakes, estuaries and aquifers. Every year in New Zealand 84 millions tonnes of soil are also eroded from pasture farms into waterways, smothering aquatic life, reefs and fishing grounds. Globally soil inorganic carbon loss sits at 1.13 billion tonnes a year. It takes however almost a thousand years to create just one centimetre of soil so to replace those trillions of tonnes of soil is just impossible for humans. It’s criminal what industrial farming is doing to our planet and food security for all life.”

“We call on consumers everywhere to stop consuming dairy products and switch to other, real foods like fruit, vegetables, nuts and grains.” Said Taranaki Animal Save spokesperson Summer Jayne. “There are plenty of plant-based dairy products easily available now that don’t require the slaughter of 2 million babies a year. Ditch dairy and save lives.”

End Big Dairy is a growing collaboration of environmental, animal and human rights groups all working for change in Aotearoa. EBD first came together to organise a protest that disrupted the New Zealand National Dairy Industry Awards in 2023, highlighting the numerous harms the industry causes. The groups aim to end big dairy and help create a rapid, just transition to a regenerative, mostly plant-based, carbon-negative economy that respects animals, workers and honours Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

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