The RTÉ Prime Time documentary on the treatment of calves will have horrified many people, but as Owen McCormack argues, it is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to animal welfare and destructive environmental practices in a profit driven system.
On July 10th, Prime Time Investigates showed the casual, violent abuse and disregard for animals in the dairy industry, with calves left unfed or watered on journeys that lasted 40 hours. While the Government and the industry claimed that they opposed such treatment, the reality according to Ethical Farming Ireland is that this is normal treatment. EF explained that, “We have repeatedly submitted complaints about this over the years, to the Irish authorities and the EU Commission, as have many other NGOs, but they have been ignored.”
The Guardian reported on it in 2020 and Compassion in World Farming have been raising the issue since 2016.
The treatment of animals from the dairy boom mirrors the abuse of workers in meat processing. Both are inevitable by-products of an industry that is also massively hurting the environment and is primarily aimed at feeding corporate profits, not people.
The Government and farming lobby groups have not just ignored, but actively aided and abetted the horrific by-product of the dairy sector boom. Even recent EPA reports that show how massive increases in fertilisers and nitrate use ( directly linked to dairy expansion) have damaged water quality in lakes, rivers and estuaries in the South and Southeast. These scandals have been met with a slick, national greenwashing campaign that seeks to paper over the reality of environmental damage .
Government and farming reps repeat the lies that Ireland’s dairy and meat sectors are the world’s most “carbon efficient producers” or that new tech solutions can help reach climate and environmental targets. The claims on “climate friendly“ beef and dairy are lies. They are based on a 2010 report that itself used 2004 data and has been debunked many times since, but is still repeated like a sacred mantra by TDs and farming industry reps.
Their real aim is not to protect ordinary farmers, but to preserve a system that has enriched a few while doing massive damage to animals, workers, a majority of farmers and the environment.
The True Cost of Dairy Herd Expansion
The immediate cause of the wanton cruelty is the decision by the FG led Govt to encourage a massive expansion in the dairy herd in 2015. A by-product of this expansion was the birth of many male calves each year. These animals essentially have no monetary value to farmers who can use only female calves but need cows to give birth in order to produce milk. Male calves were effectively worthless for the industry. The Prime Time documentary showed what happens to some. It didn’t show what happens to the 30,000 plus that are slaughtered shortly after birth. Those shipped abroad to the EU and further afield for veal suffer horrendously in a cruel live export trade that cares nothing for the suffering of animals.
Officially, figures suggest that “247,612 animals were exported from Ireland in 2021. Some 75,063 of these were dairy bull calves under six weeks of age. Another 11,591 dairy bull calves died on farms under six weeks and 23,524 were slaughtered. In total, 110,178 dairy bull calves were either exported, killed or died on farms under six weeks of age.”
The true figures for calves killed is likely to be much higher. Last year, for example, over 400 dead calves were discovered on a farm in Garryspillane, Co. Limerick.
The cruelty is a small part of a global trend. As intensive capitalist agriculture expands to fill fast food markets and as large corporations extend control over every step of food production, it drives profit seeking and immense cruelty. Globally, two out of every three farmed animals are now factory farmed. It is a system dependent on antibiotics and chemicals as well as large quantities of fertilisers and nitrates. The cruelty and disregard seen is an inevitable by-product of production for profit, where farmers and processors are put under immense pressure to minimise costs. It is a system with no time for environmental standards or compassion for animals .
Irish farming reps will deny that Irish agriculture is intensive or market-driven, saying it still constitutes overwhelmingly of family farms on grassland and not feed lots. While this is true to an extent at the producer level, it ignores the trends for larger consolidation of farm sizes and the growth of non-family run farms. Most importantly, it ignores the fact that the processing, marketing and the commodification of food is very much determined by markets and capitalist interests that are linked into European and global systems.
The dairy boom started with the decision to end EU milk quotas in 2015. The EU moved to expand dairy and milk production, essentially to cash in on growing Asian markets. The Irish state saw this as an opportunity to boost its dairy sector, concentrated in the South and Southeast – traditionally a bastion of Fine Gael support. It directly aided many of Ireland’s most profitable dairy and beef exporters.
Ireland Doesn’t “Feed the World”
Far from feeding the world, the move saw the creation of new markets across the world, often shoving local producers aside. Dairy and meat exports to the Middle East and Asia have sky-rocketed, creating new wants and products in areas that previously didn’t consume that much dairy food.
According to Bord Bia:
“Irish dairy exports were valued at €6.8bn last year, a year-on-year value increase of 33% or €1.7bn, driven mainly by Irish butter (up 26% in value) and cheese.”
Ireland exported dairy products to over 147 countries in 2021. The largest destinations were The UK, Netherlands, Germany, China and the US. “Irish dairy exports for Asian destinations experienced extraordinary growth, particularly for ingredients. Dairy exports to priority markets such as Indonesia and Malaysia increased in value by 60% and 23% respectively, becoming worth more than €97m cumulatively”.
The Irish Dairy herd saw massive growth driven by these export markets, from 1.3 million animals in 2015 to 1.6 million. The herd has increased every year over the last decade as Governments incentivise farmers to switch to dairy, despite knowing about its massive impact on greenhouse gas emissions and water quality.
In 2021, Irish farmers produced 8.75 billion litres of milk, an increase of over 2 billion litres since 2015.
State Aid in a Grossly Unequal Industry
This switch has benefitted some farmers, as is evident from income figures. There are 17,000 dairy farmers in Ireland, along with some 5,000 fulltime tillage farmers who overwhelmingly just supply livestock feed and have also benefited somewhat from the dairy boom. But the real beneficiaries are the large processors and agri-corporations who are behind the drive. While average farm income in 2022 was €48,000, this masked a huge inequality in income and living standards. The average figure for dairy was €152,000 while other sectors such as cattle rearing had average incomes as low as €10,000 and sheep farming average incomes were just €16,000. The real winners have been the big corporations and processors like Glanbia, Daiygold, and Larry Goodman’s beef companies.
The Irish state has always been close to big Agri interests like Goodman. In 2021 it directly gave many of the country’s most profitable beef and dairy companies over €70 million to expand markets and diversify products. Incredibly, these grants saw some of the country’s richest firms get direct state funds; Goodman’s Slaney Group got almost €2 million to create new markets while boasting that its pre-tax profits after revenues increased by 27% from €357.9 million to €624.77 million. Dairygold could similarly get a state hand out worth €5 million to create new markets and products while also boasting that it achieved a record turnover of €1.65 billion, an increase of €477.8 million on 2021, and an operating profit of €40.2 million.
The same largess applied to Dawn Meats and many others in the meat and dairy sector. The Irish state will not just turn a blind eye to the mistreatment of animals, workers and the environment, it will directly fund (and if necessary, as the Beef Tribunal and other scandals show, directly bail out) the entire sector. This has nothing to do with feeding the world but with continuing a dysfunctional industry that benefits a few and harms the many.
Greenwashing Climate Vandalism
Nor is this a once off bung to those driving climate vandalism, environmental damage and untold animal suffering. The state funds Bord Bia and Teagasc; both of whom directly cover for and facilitate climate denial and push the opening up of new markets for dairy and beef on grounds that are based on pure greenwashing.
Bord Bia along with the Dairy Council unleashed a huge advertising campaign in anticipation of the Prime Time documentary and after the EPA’s damning report on the effects of fertiliser use in the South and Southeast.
Teagasc, a semi-state research body, has a board that includes five dairy farmers, a former GlaxoSmithKlein business leader and a rep from an international fertiliser corporation at its head. They are wheeled out to tout technical solutions to every issue around climate damage or environmental harms. Their solutions mainly hinge on making a practice more efficient, but never challenge the logic or examine the harm caused by a system that is based on ever increasing herd numbers for export, here or abroad.
Increasingly, outright climate denial is used by industry reps to justify business as usual and minimise the sector’s impacts. While relatively few farmers benefit from the current set up, the use of fake news, misinformation, near hysteria and anger at the Greens has fed a growth in climate scepticism, as many see no alternative to the current system.
Socialists need to challenge and call out what is happening. There is no technical solution that will allow an ever-increasing dairy herd. Ordinary farmers in the west and elsewhere should not be scapegoated to allow for the wealthier dairy sector and big processors to continue with business as usual. Live exports must end and we need real food sufficiency that doesn’t depend on creating markets abroad for meat and dairy products that are unsustainable for Ireland and for the globe.
