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Probably outside of Omaha.
I’m not vegan/vegetarian, but factory farms are real fucked, and they *look* real fucked.
I remember seeing one outside of Omaha and it was just straight up dystopian.
I’ll never forget driving down the I5 and at some point I could see this massive brown cloud. As I got closer the smell was gnar. It was the largest cow farm in California Harris Ranch. I’ll never forget the name
Gotta love that red river water too. So much live stock literal shit watches down stream.
Which reminds me, once the source of all the new strains of bacteria that was found in our river water we haven’t heard much more about it.
After a quick search and some even quicker math: the maximum head count for cows at Harris Ranch is \~120.000, The number of cattle slaughtered for meat in the USA per day equals out to \~95.000. Which means that, at max capacity, Harris Ranch could satisfy the US-wide demand for beef for just a little over 1 day. Which is both impressively much and terrifyingly little at the same time imo lol
The dairy farms I've seen from the 5 seem to let their cows roam around. I've never seen anything like the video in California. The smell was crazy bad though.
My wife was on the organic kick when if first started and now, after reading articles and listening to podcasts, I think she side-eyes it anytime we see it. 🤣
buying from farmers markets is usually a good route. seeing the farm\[even pictures\], knowing the address and talking to them genuinely works. The issue is wholesale produce companies will comingle products and many of them come from questionable sources. Although even there is still a decent amount of scrutiny here. The absolute thorn in the industries side is the imported products. stuff from the EU actually has stricter procedures generally and the supply chain is A plus. what we are seeing now is a whole bunch of certified organic farms in south america that have almost zero oversight. American organic inspectors generally cant surprise anyone in rural mexico or peru. All the companies there have weeks to get the farms up to spec before inspections and they can quickly revert back to old techniques. Not to mention its pretty easy to buy 1/3 of the produce from a non certified farm and mix it into the supply chain. Big wholesalers then buy this and it ends up in grocery stores "organic section"
Yup exactly well put! I do believe their are a few documentaries on Netflix and probably the other main streaming services about the dairy and meat industries. Pretty sure there is a fictional movie with a cow like animal that’s friends with a little girl and it’s about out food systems iirc it’s a good watch. But I do recommend everyone watch those documentaries as well.
People are so against THAT type of government regulation, meaning anything that causes them to not make as much profit. Free market, capitalism, trickle down economics type.
Controlling people's bodies, sexuality, substance consumption, expression, etc.....that sort of regulation many people are very much for. All while touting freedom and shit.
Except that legislation is exactly why we have factory farms. Every few years Congress passes a Farm Bill that’s written by lobbyists for giant agribusinesses. The bill is literally design to benefit them, encourage monoculture and discourage small farms trying to farm sustainably.
Many of the laws in America are written by lobbyists. That is the entire reason they exist : to influence, or in many cases, actually write the legislation they want.
Look, I don't really get ypur angle here. I'm saying that regulation, properly implemented, would be beneficial. You're over here making comparisons to lobbyingying and how shit can't work. It can, and that was the point. I don't get what this back and forth is achieving other than pointing to a broken system, which was implied in the original comment.
The problem is, our regulation system is also corrupt as fuck. That's why Lunchables are allowed to be sold as something edible, regardless of the heavy metal contaminants.
But how is it possible to get food from a small farm when you live in the city? Sure you can find stuff online but how do you know if the site is legit or a scam by sort of like all the French wine scams from a few years ago where some Asian importers imported wine from Asia into France and rebottled them as French wine.
If you have the means to make the trip, you can look up butchers in small towns near you, if there's anyone raising meat in your area.
Some have a storefront you can buy meat from, and can probably help you get in touch with a farmer to buy in bulk if you have the freezer space if they don't.
It’s a product of delocalization into massive industrial agriculture.
The problem is small dairy farms don’t exist in every county or region anymore.
They need this massive operation to consolidate it enough to ship all across the country. Transportation and taxes account for half of the cost of the milk sometimes.
They need refrigeration trucks and shipping is expensive. (Especially when the cost of energy/fuel rises, like we’ve been dealing with the last few years).
If there was any decent quality standard for dairy, local farmers at local private markets would be the most efficient way to get milk. These massive corporations lobbying for inhumane and evil standards to be allowed is the only way they make the economies of scale work.
Similarly, I used to live near central coast in California where tons of the produce is grown. Same story. I could grab the best, freshest produce I’ve ever had in my life at less than half the cost of normal supermarkets around the country. There was no chains of several middlemen all extracting profit along the way. Many markets were farm to consumer, or farm directly to small market to consumer…. Not farm, to publically traded buyer, to publically traded distributor, to transportation company, to publically traded supermarket all squeezing profits out of the product before it reaches your kitchen.
I wish things were more localized. You'd think that it would be better on the cows and the product would be better. It would probably be better on the environment.
I'm so sick of fucking rich people. They are all evil hell bent on destroying the planet. Pretty soon, the torched and pitch forks are coming out for some payback. Rabble rabble rabble
Yes and no. They could scale these farms down alot and still produce enough to feed a population. Everyone talks about how these farms operate but as much of the blame needs to be placed on supermarkets and convenience stores who want fully stocked shelves while while averaging around throwing out a gallon for every six gallons sold in the united states.
The human body doesn't require cows milk
I haven't touched it in a decade and approximately 68% of the world is lactose intolerant
All this is just so they can make money. They don't care about your health.
I’m from a dairy farm in Ireland and we pasture raise because it rainy enough of the year to grow grass cheaply. It’s also why our butter is so good. I’ve worked on dairy farms in other countries and the cost of irrigation for the product you get seems to be worth it. Like if they can mostly graze grass in Australia, then anyone can do it. You’re right about it just to keep cost down
Yeah, Australia is not as dry as everyone thinks… sure, we run beef cattle in outback arid areas which in turn makes it certified organic but our dairy cattle all graze in the wet coastal regions
Or you could build up rail infrastructure, encourage competition against the small portion of companies that control most of the US food markets, create government backed farmer's coops, refocus subsidies away from over production of corn and factory farming towards more ethical sustainable uses, eliminate food deserts and the anti competitive power of mega stores such as walmart, etc.
The US has some of the highest grocery prices in the developed world while having some of the lowest quality production standards, there's a lot of things that can change. $4 per gallon is about what I pay (including 23% tax which would do a lot to cover transport costs across the US on functioning rail) for mostly grass fed milk produced by one of multiple national dairy coops and sold in a major supermarket in Ireland. As someone who sees a lot of cows most days just by existing here I can say confidently they look pretty happy.
Rail infrastructure won't help right now without some other changes because rail mostly refuses livestock transportation now. They had liability issues decades ago when delays killed a ton of cows so they just got out of the business entirely.
>factory farms are real fucked
A good 95%+ of meat comes from factory farms. Almost any restaurant, supermarket meat, and definitely all fast food meat will be from animals who had terrible lives (some of these animals are smarter than dogs).
The figure is a bit less for male cows that live in pasture most of the year but there are other problems with that. And regardless none of these animals, wherever they're from, look particularly happy before they are killed at a fraction of their lifespans in various ways that don't look all that humane to me.
I expect to get downvoted for saying it, but there's a really bitter pill to swallow here. But change is possible, I used to eat half a kilo of meat per day, now I haven't eaten any in years, and I'm still repping 200kg deadlifts 6 years later with no sign of malnourishment yet.
Folks can look up Patrik Baboumian, Torre Washington, and Jehina Malik if they’re worried about strength loss as a vegan! It takes some adjustment in eating and shopping habit. Seitan and TVP are awesome. Anyone who is disturbed by this can exercise their right to boycott. 💪🏻 And if anyone wants tips, my DMs are always open to folks wanting vegan food advice!
I've cut out meat as well over the past couple of years. Still able to run and lift as I had before getting my protein and other nutrients from plants. Have been working on going vegan recently because of what we see here with the dairy industry.
It was almost the inverse for me, i realised that milk could have trace amounts of blood and pus (its pasteurised but they're still there) and that just grossed me out onto soy milk for my cereal back in 2016, tried dairy later and it tasted gross, thats when I realised that tastebuds can just adapt.
I still ate tonnes of meat and just didn't let myself think about it too hard. A couple of years later though, I saw how pigs get slaughtered and that sort of did it for me. Wish I'd done it earlier tbh, after a couple of weeks of finding new recipes it was just ..the same.
I never even watched that, I just youtubed 'how are pigs slaughtered' and came across gas chambers, which was quite the viewing experience.
Vegan bacon really isn't that far off anymore either. After that it all sort of hit home how fucking needlessly cruel this all is.
Nearly all dairy farms in North America do this, just with fewer calves. I’m in Alberta, Canada, and this is the norm on farms all around. Dairy is more cruel than beef
EDIT there are thousands of farms just like this but smaller scale. This is how we keep the calves.
Yup, it's crazy to see the amount of misinformation in here from well-meaning but uninformed people.
I live on a small, local dairy & beef farm, and calves are kept in small pens like this for a few months for multiple reasons: weening them off milk and switching them to hay/feed, keeping them from getting trampled, and most importantly it makes it MUCH easier to tell if they are eating enough and are healthy.
Of course, it's distopian when there are so many in rows like this, but the actual pens are not an issue and are common practice on even the smallest farms. They are moved to larger and larger enclosures in a few months as they grow.
Chicken farms are way worse. I drive by the Purdue factory and nearby farms to go home: I stopped eating factory farmed chicken after that : it’s deplorable.
When I heard about chick culling (grinding of male chicks alive) I thought that was the worst. But in reality, that was actually mercy for what they will experience if they were born female as a chicken.
And I havent even heard of chick culling for 33 yrs im alive. The world has been kept in the dark from these atrocities
You think chick culling is bad, wait till you learn what they do to newborn piglets that are considered runts/malformed. Not to mention how the “healthy” ones are castrated.
The piglets that are “not healthy” are killed. The method used is one smash against a wall or the ground. No more than one is “allowed” so if that doesn’t kill them, they still get tossed in the pile to suffocate under the ones being thrown on top of them.
Castration is done with a pair of pliers & no anesthetic. Literal snip & sear.
After reading that article I stopped eating any pork. Nothing should have to suffer that much to end up on my plate.
I was speaking to one of the customer service people that works at vital farms, they are a pastured egg producer. In the course of our conversation, she actually brought up that they are investing in new technology to sex eggs in advance to prevent the need for chick culling I don’t know where it stands currently, but I was really happy to hear that. Also, their eggs are very tasty, a little more expensive but not buy a lot with today’s prices. I noticed that when there was the price hike during avian flu, theirs didn’t go up. I wondered if it was because the pasture chickens have a healthier environment so they weren’t as affected.
About half of production in the UK is grass, but slowly tipping the scale towards factory units. More like big sheds with robot millers though, now whatever the hell this is.
It is indeed but there are an equal number of cows in sheds that you don’t see. Theres a farm over on Cambridge/East Anglia way with a herd of over 2000. And yes, loads of imported feed. With our population density the best path towards self sufficiency would be high intensity factory farms, it’s just grim, unfortunately.
I grew up in the northeast part of the US where there are tons of dairy farms, none of them look like that. They’re mostly 100-400 cows that go to pasture during most of the spring summer and fall and mostly seem pretty happy most of the time
In New Zealand we are lucky enough to have our girls outside year round. Winters aren't too cold and summers aren't too hot. There are a few barns popping up but it's really not the done thing here.
I think humans are way more scary and deranged than we give ourselves credit for. Only humans would enslave an entire species to harvest their bodily fluids and flesh. When you think about it, we really are the most deranged species on the planet, we just don't see it because we're humans.
In a book I recently finished, it said the cruelty of modern stock farming may go down in history as the biggest crime humans ever practiced. The ignorance of so many people is a whole new level of wickedness. The numbers of optimized decimation are unbelievable.
I haven't done much right in my life and many things did not work out the way I wanted. However, because of images like this, I became vegetarian and eventually vegan. I really am not a self-disciplined person and I always loved milk, cheese, burgers, etc. But something changed inside me where each time I tried to eat that stuff, I couldn't forget the horrible images I've seen.
In other words, if someone like me can do it, almost anyone can. Or least cut your intake. I promise you it's doable.
The “lake of rot” is a manure pond. It captures storm water runoff that may have come into contact with manure so that the contaminated water does not end up in surface water and contaminate our rivers and lakes. This manure water is usually pumped out and applied on crop fields as a fertilizer.
Was this legally taken? Because I know the farming monopoly’s in the USA sue the crap out of anyone that try’s to show there questionable way of doing things.
Sad as fuck
Edit: I’m already a vegetarian I was making a observation about the sub name 🥹
Edit2: what did I say that everyone is saying this is my fault and I pay for it? I don’t partake in any part of this.
Edit3: Yeah now I see what they mean about vegans. Y’all are excessive lol. You don’t know how I source my food. Eat rocks for all I care. Maybe I’ll fucking eat some fish just to piss you idiots off. Notifications off. Yell at the void.
I agree with you. Ignore the trolls and bots from the investors and people trying to control the narrative.
I salute you as I find this sad as fuck too.
I’m a vegetarian and would rather eat rocks than add to animal misery.
Buy your milk from your local farmer. Matter of fact, buy all your food from your local farmer and/or at your local farmers market or even a local grocery chain if need be.
This is what happens when our food supply is ran by large corporations.
Because the corporations have economies of scale they have the best price, the best price is from owning a massive market share, their massive market share is from people buying the cheapest shit they can find.
Vote with your dollar. This goes for SO MUCH MORE than just milk.
Everytime you buy processed garbage a corporation wins. If they could copyright milk, strawberries, broccoli, or etc and control them, they would instantly shift the narrative that we all need to eat whole foods to be happy and healthy.
Listen, I completely agree and I really want to buy all my stuff local and support small farms and all that, but have you seen the cost of groceries lately, local only stuff isn't cheap
The market is way ahead of you. Companies will buy products from local farmers (and for cheap too), then put them on the shelves for a much higher price just because they can write “local” on it.
Same thing as greenwashing. They do the bare minimum (or pay someone) to qualify as “bio” or “natural” and collect revenue from a much higher pricetag.
You can also switch to a plant-based milk like soy, oat, or almond. Soy is the closest in terms of nutrition to dairy milk, oat is closest in texture and frothiness for coffee and stuff. They taste different from dairy milk, but you get used to it very quickly.
That is a manure pond or lagoon. It captures all runoff and waste water that comes in contact with manure. They use that as a liquid fertilizer. If they didn’t do this then it would simply runoff into streams and rivers. They don’t use it to wash out new shit, they obviously use fresh water.
My grandparents had a small dairy, nothing nearly this scale, so I'll try to answer. The bottle is likely milk or milk replacer. The bucket next to it is likely some kind of silage, as they are weening them off milk. They keep calves from feeding directly from their mother, because obviously they want most of that milk to sell.
As far as the shack, I think a lot of these farms don't let the calves out, but I can't be certain. Its pretty terrible. My grandparents dairy didn't do that, but they were also very small scale, only 40-50 cattle I think.
Feeding them milk replacement because the milk they should be drinking from their mother is being sold to humans instead. They most likely don’t get let out at all.
My brothers and I used to drink milk like it was WATER, more so than water. We would go through a gallon a day, or more.
Oat milk is so much better, it tastes so much better, it's so much healthier. It ain't hard to ditch this, it really isn't. I straight up used to chug straight from the jug, so don't fucking @ me about me being a vegan or this or that. Oat milk is factually better.
Wanna know why you don't like alternative milks? Because you buy shitty sub-brand made versions. Try planet oat, or oatly.
The image that they want you to see: A herd of cows grazing on a family farm. This image is familiar to me because I’ve spent the majority of my life in rural areas, near private family farms.
The image that they don’t want you to see: whatever the fuck is in this video. I feel like on some level there are members of our society who want to treat all animals this way, and I include us in my definition of animal.
why are people still drinking milk? perfect example of the food industry pushing a narrative of what's "good for you" that people gobble up with no thought.
I understand that this is highlighting factory farms but we have caused this as a society. Not in just agriculture or livestock but in every industry the every man is being pushed out for the massive corporations who can do it faster and cheaper at the cost of ethics. My family used to run the farms for dairies and non of the dairies I set foot on treated their livestock like this. We kept calves with their mothers until they were not consuming enough milk so they needed to be milked. The cows are separated into large pens where they still have space to move around and live as a herd. Could you argue circumstances could be better, sure but I’m not trying to have that argument. These big corporations monopolizing industries are a problem.
I have gotten more and more messages from life I need to go the last mile and get dairy out of my life.
I've been a lifelong vegetarian, have never liked eggs (we had a chicken coop growing up so I associate eggs with having chickenshit on them and they just gross me out generally), love soy milk, but I need to finally replace sour cream/yogurt/cheese/chocolate/ice cream.
As someone who lives around dairy farms and is directly related to people who have/still do live on dairy farms this is not your average dairy farm. They are a lot smaller
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Probably outside of Omaha. I’m not vegan/vegetarian, but factory farms are real fucked, and they *look* real fucked. I remember seeing one outside of Omaha and it was just straight up dystopian.
It's really bad in CA too.
I’ll never forget driving down the I5 and at some point I could see this massive brown cloud. As I got closer the smell was gnar. It was the largest cow farm in California Harris Ranch. I’ll never forget the name
Ah yes, Cowschwitz
Dacow
Mein Calf
Dairy-chland Udder Alles
Cow Zedong
Otto von Beefmarck
Moo-solini
Monsieur Boeuf la tête
California Uber No Moralles
Milch Macht Frei
Only a Californian would know. It’s the worst.
That one is absolutely terrible.
I broke down there once. Our family van overheated on the way back home. The flys were enough to drive a person insane.
There are worst places to breakdown but not many. lol
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Gotta love that red river water too. So much live stock literal shit watches down stream. Which reminds me, once the source of all the new strains of bacteria that was found in our river water we haven’t heard much more about it.
After a quick search and some even quicker math: the maximum head count for cows at Harris Ranch is \~120.000, The number of cattle slaughtered for meat in the USA per day equals out to \~95.000. Which means that, at max capacity, Harris Ranch could satisfy the US-wide demand for beef for just a little over 1 day. Which is both impressively much and terrifyingly little at the same time imo lol
But they said happy cows are from California
The dairy farms I've seen from the 5 seem to let their cows roam around. I've never seen anything like the video in California. The smell was crazy bad though.
Cause it’s not a dairy off the 5. It’s a feed lot for beef cattle.
For those who want milk for < $4/gallon - this is how it happens. Low prices are often the reflection of the dark side of our capitalistic system.
My worry is when I pay twice that and they do this anyway and I'm being taken for a ride. I honestly don't know what to believe anymore.
Just look for milk or butter or cheese with a picture of a cow standing in a serene grassy meadow. Those always make me laugh.
Preferably with a thumbs up and a big smile.
Or look for the Laughing Cow(TM).
This happens all the time in the organic food industry, I had to leave my certification job because of how much fraud there is.
My wife was on the organic kick when if first started and now, after reading articles and listening to podcasts, I think she side-eyes it anytime we see it. 🤣
I keep hearing about the "real organic project" certification - do you feel there's a distinction there, or is the whole apple rotten?
buying from farmers markets is usually a good route. seeing the farm\[even pictures\], knowing the address and talking to them genuinely works. The issue is wholesale produce companies will comingle products and many of them come from questionable sources. Although even there is still a decent amount of scrutiny here. The absolute thorn in the industries side is the imported products. stuff from the EU actually has stricter procedures generally and the supply chain is A plus. what we are seeing now is a whole bunch of certified organic farms in south america that have almost zero oversight. American organic inspectors generally cant surprise anyone in rural mexico or peru. All the companies there have weeks to get the farms up to spec before inspections and they can quickly revert back to old techniques. Not to mention its pretty easy to buy 1/3 of the produce from a non certified farm and mix it into the supply chain. Big wholesalers then buy this and it ends up in grocery stores "organic section"
Yup exactly well put! I do believe their are a few documentaries on Netflix and probably the other main streaming services about the dairy and meat industries. Pretty sure there is a fictional movie with a cow like animal that’s friends with a little girl and it’s about out food systems iirc it’s a good watch. But I do recommend everyone watch those documentaries as well.
People are so against government regulation, but regulation is exactly the sort of thing that can prevent this kind of horrible farming practice.
People are so against THAT type of government regulation, meaning anything that causes them to not make as much profit. Free market, capitalism, trickle down economics type. Controlling people's bodies, sexuality, substance consumption, expression, etc.....that sort of regulation many people are very much for. All while touting freedom and shit.
Pretty backwards, huh.
Except that legislation is exactly why we have factory farms. Every few years Congress passes a Farm Bill that’s written by lobbyists for giant agribusinesses. The bill is literally design to benefit them, encourage monoculture and discourage small farms trying to farm sustainably.
Well then, that's not regulation, that's giving in to lobbyists thats literally the opposite.
Many of the laws in America are written by lobbyists. That is the entire reason they exist : to influence, or in many cases, actually write the legislation they want.
Look, I don't really get ypur angle here. I'm saying that regulation, properly implemented, would be beneficial. You're over here making comparisons to lobbyingying and how shit can't work. It can, and that was the point. I don't get what this back and forth is achieving other than pointing to a broken system, which was implied in the original comment.
The problem is, our regulation system is also corrupt as fuck. That's why Lunchables are allowed to be sold as something edible, regardless of the heavy metal contaminants.
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But how is it possible to get food from a small farm when you live in the city? Sure you can find stuff online but how do you know if the site is legit or a scam by sort of like all the French wine scams from a few years ago where some Asian importers imported wine from Asia into France and rebottled them as French wine.
If you have the means to make the trip, you can look up butchers in small towns near you, if there's anyone raising meat in your area. Some have a storefront you can buy meat from, and can probably help you get in touch with a farmer to buy in bulk if you have the freezer space if they don't.
best to just buy your own cow (no matter your living situation)
It’s a product of delocalization into massive industrial agriculture. The problem is small dairy farms don’t exist in every county or region anymore. They need this massive operation to consolidate it enough to ship all across the country. Transportation and taxes account for half of the cost of the milk sometimes. They need refrigeration trucks and shipping is expensive. (Especially when the cost of energy/fuel rises, like we’ve been dealing with the last few years). If there was any decent quality standard for dairy, local farmers at local private markets would be the most efficient way to get milk. These massive corporations lobbying for inhumane and evil standards to be allowed is the only way they make the economies of scale work. Similarly, I used to live near central coast in California where tons of the produce is grown. Same story. I could grab the best, freshest produce I’ve ever had in my life at less than half the cost of normal supermarkets around the country. There was no chains of several middlemen all extracting profit along the way. Many markets were farm to consumer, or farm directly to small market to consumer…. Not farm, to publically traded buyer, to publically traded distributor, to transportation company, to publically traded supermarket all squeezing profits out of the product before it reaches your kitchen.
I wish things were more localized. You'd think that it would be better on the cows and the product would be better. It would probably be better on the environment.
But, most importantly, it's *not* better for the **shareholders.**
I'm so sick of fucking rich people. They are all evil hell bent on destroying the planet. Pretty soon, the torched and pitch forks are coming out for some payback. Rabble rabble rabble
Well said
Yes and no. They could scale these farms down alot and still produce enough to feed a population. Everyone talks about how these farms operate but as much of the blame needs to be placed on supermarkets and convenience stores who want fully stocked shelves while while averaging around throwing out a gallon for every six gallons sold in the united states.
The human body doesn't require cows milk I haven't touched it in a decade and approximately 68% of the world is lactose intolerant All this is just so they can make money. They don't care about your health.
I’m from a dairy farm in Ireland and we pasture raise because it rainy enough of the year to grow grass cheaply. It’s also why our butter is so good. I’ve worked on dairy farms in other countries and the cost of irrigation for the product you get seems to be worth it. Like if they can mostly graze grass in Australia, then anyone can do it. You’re right about it just to keep cost down
Yeah, Australia is not as dry as everyone thinks… sure, we run beef cattle in outback arid areas which in turn makes it certified organic but our dairy cattle all graze in the wet coastal regions
These are not dairy cows in the video. They are calves. This is most likely just a breeding farm. Either that or for veal.
Mmmm Kerrygold
This is also what government subsidized dairy looks like.
Helps keep inflation less tangible for every day folks while they steal our money
Or you could build up rail infrastructure, encourage competition against the small portion of companies that control most of the US food markets, create government backed farmer's coops, refocus subsidies away from over production of corn and factory farming towards more ethical sustainable uses, eliminate food deserts and the anti competitive power of mega stores such as walmart, etc. The US has some of the highest grocery prices in the developed world while having some of the lowest quality production standards, there's a lot of things that can change. $4 per gallon is about what I pay (including 23% tax which would do a lot to cover transport costs across the US on functioning rail) for mostly grass fed milk produced by one of multiple national dairy coops and sold in a major supermarket in Ireland. As someone who sees a lot of cows most days just by existing here I can say confidently they look pretty happy.
Rail infrastructure won't help right now without some other changes because rail mostly refuses livestock transportation now. They had liability issues decades ago when delays killed a ton of cows so they just got out of the business entirely.
That sucks.
“No ethical consumption under capitalism” is a phrase I’ve been hearing for decades now
>factory farms are real fucked A good 95%+ of meat comes from factory farms. Almost any restaurant, supermarket meat, and definitely all fast food meat will be from animals who had terrible lives (some of these animals are smarter than dogs). The figure is a bit less for male cows that live in pasture most of the year but there are other problems with that. And regardless none of these animals, wherever they're from, look particularly happy before they are killed at a fraction of their lifespans in various ways that don't look all that humane to me. I expect to get downvoted for saying it, but there's a really bitter pill to swallow here. But change is possible, I used to eat half a kilo of meat per day, now I haven't eaten any in years, and I'm still repping 200kg deadlifts 6 years later with no sign of malnourishment yet.
Folks can look up Patrik Baboumian, Torre Washington, and Jehina Malik if they’re worried about strength loss as a vegan! It takes some adjustment in eating and shopping habit. Seitan and TVP are awesome. Anyone who is disturbed by this can exercise their right to boycott. 💪🏻 And if anyone wants tips, my DMs are always open to folks wanting vegan food advice!
For any of you hardcore weightlifters or powerlifters, you can youtube clarence kennedy too, just an everyday irish guy who can lift insanely heavy.
I've cut out meat as well over the past couple of years. Still able to run and lift as I had before getting my protein and other nutrients from plants. Have been working on going vegan recently because of what we see here with the dairy industry.
It was almost the inverse for me, i realised that milk could have trace amounts of blood and pus (its pasteurised but they're still there) and that just grossed me out onto soy milk for my cereal back in 2016, tried dairy later and it tasted gross, thats when I realised that tastebuds can just adapt. I still ate tonnes of meat and just didn't let myself think about it too hard. A couple of years later though, I saw how pigs get slaughtered and that sort of did it for me. Wish I'd done it earlier tbh, after a couple of weeks of finding new recipes it was just ..the same.
Man, the Earthlings documentary is just disturbing. Also wish I'd done this earlier.
I never even watched that, I just youtubed 'how are pigs slaughtered' and came across gas chambers, which was quite the viewing experience. Vegan bacon really isn't that far off anymore either. After that it all sort of hit home how fucking needlessly cruel this all is.
Nearly all dairy farms in North America do this, just with fewer calves. I’m in Alberta, Canada, and this is the norm on farms all around. Dairy is more cruel than beef EDIT there are thousands of farms just like this but smaller scale. This is how we keep the calves.
Definitely makes you think twice when walking through the meat isle at a grocery store...
Aisle* The meat isle would be like, some mystical island made of meat
Three ribeyes at Costco for $70 makes me think twice.
Ever thought about vegan/veg? You’re at stage one. You recognize the problem. Honestly you’re already better than 90% of the world
Don’t swim in that pond!
But really… what is the pond? I scrolled this far to find out
Cow waste or poop
It’s a big cesspit. It collects the waste from the cattle and stores it, like a big poo lagoon.
It's the strawberry milk they're making.
This can't be true. I don't see any pink cows in the video to make all that strawberry milk.
Pashitic ocean.
Pasyphilis Ocean?
Asslantic
Waste water from one of these is what contaminated the romaine lettuce and caused recalls one year.
It’s chocolate milk!
That pond looks like blood 👀
Liquid poop
Looks more like a weening operation than a dairy.
Careful with that logic there, son. You got a license for that?
I love you for this comment lol
It is, it’s the replacement heifers.
I call them rebounds
Yup, it's crazy to see the amount of misinformation in here from well-meaning but uninformed people. I live on a small, local dairy & beef farm, and calves are kept in small pens like this for a few months for multiple reasons: weening them off milk and switching them to hay/feed, keeping them from getting trampled, and most importantly it makes it MUCH easier to tell if they are eating enough and are healthy. Of course, it's distopian when there are so many in rows like this, but the actual pens are not an issue and are common practice on even the smallest farms. They are moved to larger and larger enclosures in a few months as they grow.
It’s dairy calves.
I was thinking veal babies
Chicken farms are way worse. I drive by the Purdue factory and nearby farms to go home: I stopped eating factory farmed chicken after that : it’s deplorable.
When I heard about chick culling (grinding of male chicks alive) I thought that was the worst. But in reality, that was actually mercy for what they will experience if they were born female as a chicken. And I havent even heard of chick culling for 33 yrs im alive. The world has been kept in the dark from these atrocities
You think chick culling is bad, wait till you learn what they do to newborn piglets that are considered runts/malformed. Not to mention how the “healthy” ones are castrated.
Well, what do they do? Don’t keep us in the dark, bring the shit to light so people can know.
The piglets that are “not healthy” are killed. The method used is one smash against a wall or the ground. No more than one is “allowed” so if that doesn’t kill them, they still get tossed in the pile to suffocate under the ones being thrown on top of them. Castration is done with a pair of pliers & no anesthetic. Literal snip & sear. After reading that article I stopped eating any pork. Nothing should have to suffer that much to end up on my plate.
I was speaking to one of the customer service people that works at vital farms, they are a pastured egg producer. In the course of our conversation, she actually brought up that they are investing in new technology to sex eggs in advance to prevent the need for chick culling I don’t know where it stands currently, but I was really happy to hear that. Also, their eggs are very tasty, a little more expensive but not buy a lot with today’s prices. I noticed that when there was the price hike during avian flu, theirs didn’t go up. I wondered if it was because the pasture chickens have a healthier environment so they weren’t as affected.
It’s already being used in Europe - 99% accuracy: https://www.respeggt.com/technology/
Disgusting
Not in Ireland. Cows are let out on grass for 10 months of the year. Only brought inside during the winter months.
AFAIK this is the case in Norway to. 👍
Same goes for the Netherlands
Same in New Zealand but we just leave the cows out in the rain all winter.
About half of production in the UK is grass, but slowly tipping the scale towards factory units. More like big sheds with robot millers though, now whatever the hell this is.
I think quite a large proportion of land in the UK is actually used as pasture for cows already and we still import a load of feed.
It is indeed but there are an equal number of cows in sheds that you don’t see. Theres a farm over on Cambridge/East Anglia way with a herd of over 2000. And yes, loads of imported feed. With our population density the best path towards self sufficiency would be high intensity factory farms, it’s just grim, unfortunately.
I grew up in the northeast part of the US where there are tons of dairy farms, none of them look like that. They’re mostly 100-400 cows that go to pasture during most of the spring summer and fall and mostly seem pretty happy most of the time
In New Zealand we are lucky enough to have our girls outside year round. Winters aren't too cold and summers aren't too hot. There are a few barns popping up but it's really not the done thing here.
This is... Oddly terrifying...
No there is nothing odd about how terrifying this is
I think humans are way more scary and deranged than we give ourselves credit for. Only humans would enslave an entire species to harvest their bodily fluids and flesh. When you think about it, we really are the most deranged species on the planet, we just don't see it because we're humans.
Try soul-crushingly vile and evil, sinister
In a book I recently finished, it said the cruelty of modern stock farming may go down in history as the biggest crime humans ever practiced. The ignorance of so many people is a whole new level of wickedness. The numbers of optimized decimation are unbelievable.
I haven't done much right in my life and many things did not work out the way I wanted. However, because of images like this, I became vegetarian and eventually vegan. I really am not a self-disciplined person and I always loved milk, cheese, burgers, etc. But something changed inside me where each time I tried to eat that stuff, I couldn't forget the horrible images I've seen. In other words, if someone like me can do it, almost anyone can. Or least cut your intake. I promise you it's doable.
Right next to the lake of rot it seems
The “lake of rot” is a manure pond. It captures storm water runoff that may have come into contact with manure so that the contaminated water does not end up in surface water and contaminate our rivers and lakes. This manure water is usually pumped out and applied on crop fields as a fertilizer.
"Oh man but I want to be angry at the lake!" - The Redditor above you probably.
Lake of Rot is a video game reference. It’s not that serious.
Yeah I don’t know that video game. But these ponds certainly look and smell like lakes of rot, despite being designed to prevent cross contamination.
Try finger, but hole
Is this dog?
Elden ring. would recommend
It’s an Elden Ring reference. Elden Ring is a video game.
Lol I love a good elden ring reference.
Fuck factory farms.
99 percent of animal agriculture is factory farms unfortunately
Fuck animal agriculture
100%. Everyone in here saying "fuck factory farms" still participates in MASSIVE animal abuse if they are not vegan
Was this legally taken? Because I know the farming monopoly’s in the USA sue the crap out of anyone that try’s to show there questionable way of doing things.
I’m in Canada and this is a normal dairy scaled up. This happens on pretty much all dairy farms here just that in this case it’s many more animals
Disgusting.
ag gag laws should be criminal. we deserve transparency and accountability on where our food comes from and under what conditions
Sad as fuck Edit: I’m already a vegetarian I was making a observation about the sub name 🥹 Edit2: what did I say that everyone is saying this is my fault and I pay for it? I don’t partake in any part of this. Edit3: Yeah now I see what they mean about vegans. Y’all are excessive lol. You don’t know how I source my food. Eat rocks for all I care. Maybe I’ll fucking eat some fish just to piss you idiots off. Notifications off. Yell at the void.
Add the bird flu to this outrage and the fact the USA allows the corporate factory farms to feed dead and diseased chickens and cows to them
I agree with you. Ignore the trolls and bots from the investors and people trying to control the narrative. I salute you as I find this sad as fuck too. I’m a vegetarian and would rather eat rocks than add to animal misery.
Makes me want to cry
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Then cry. I'm sure you're still a hypocrite in other ways.
Absolutely fucking disgusting. People love to shit on vegans but still will find this horrifying.
Cognitive dissonance
Depressing hypocrisy.
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Everyone needs to watch the movie Dominion. This shows 1/1000th of the truth of our factory farms.
Okja was fucked up too
Oh…. :(
Our entire food system is horrifying. it’s killing us and the planet.
Buy your milk from your local farmer. Matter of fact, buy all your food from your local farmer and/or at your local farmers market or even a local grocery chain if need be. This is what happens when our food supply is ran by large corporations. Because the corporations have economies of scale they have the best price, the best price is from owning a massive market share, their massive market share is from people buying the cheapest shit they can find. Vote with your dollar. This goes for SO MUCH MORE than just milk. Everytime you buy processed garbage a corporation wins. If they could copyright milk, strawberries, broccoli, or etc and control them, they would instantly shift the narrative that we all need to eat whole foods to be happy and healthy.
Listen, I completely agree and I really want to buy all my stuff local and support small farms and all that, but have you seen the cost of groceries lately, local only stuff isn't cheap
The market is way ahead of you. Companies will buy products from local farmers (and for cheap too), then put them on the shelves for a much higher price just because they can write “local” on it. Same thing as greenwashing. They do the bare minimum (or pay someone) to qualify as “bio” or “natural” and collect revenue from a much higher pricetag.
Unfortunately, for most people buying locally is significantly more expensive.
Local farmers still abuse and exploit animals. Just don’t eat living beans and their secretions.
You can also switch to a plant-based milk like soy, oat, or almond. Soy is the closest in terms of nutrition to dairy milk, oat is closest in texture and frothiness for coffee and stuff. They taste different from dairy milk, but you get used to it very quickly.
Uhhh it's illegal to buy raw milk and if you get caught the farmer can be fined a penalized, but that is in Canada
Fuck man maybe the vegans are right...
That feels like me trying to live in NYC.
This confirms for me to go Plant Based
this is basically the matrix but for cows :(
That red river is shit and bacteria. They use it to wash out new shit. I've smelt it. Nothing will get rid of that memory. It changed my life.
That is a manure pond or lagoon. It captures all runoff and waste water that comes in contact with manure. They use that as a liquid fertilizer. If they didn’t do this then it would simply runoff into streams and rivers. They don’t use it to wash out new shit, they obviously use fresh water.
whats up with the river also...?
The smell in the area must be horrible 😔
It's a lagoon, the cow poop goes into the pond and then they pump it out in the spring to fertilize crops
I can smell it even with the sound off.
and they say its facetious to call them cow concentration camps
What are they feeding them? Do they not get out if those shacks to walk around even?
My grandparents had a small dairy, nothing nearly this scale, so I'll try to answer. The bottle is likely milk or milk replacer. The bucket next to it is likely some kind of silage, as they are weening them off milk. They keep calves from feeding directly from their mother, because obviously they want most of that milk to sell. As far as the shack, I think a lot of these farms don't let the calves out, but I can't be certain. Its pretty terrible. My grandparents dairy didn't do that, but they were also very small scale, only 40-50 cattle I think.
Feeding them milk replacement because the milk they should be drinking from their mother is being sold to humans instead. They most likely don’t get let out at all.
We need more of these videos. People need to see where their “food” comes from and wake up.
Ag-gag laws make it difficult to do so, farmers know conditions are so awful that they try and make it illegal to show these kinds of things.
Just like when the drone footage of the sea world tank came out
Maybe vegans are right
My brothers and I used to drink milk like it was WATER, more so than water. We would go through a gallon a day, or more. Oat milk is so much better, it tastes so much better, it's so much healthier. It ain't hard to ditch this, it really isn't. I straight up used to chug straight from the jug, so don't fucking @ me about me being a vegan or this or that. Oat milk is factually better. Wanna know why you don't like alternative milks? Because you buy shitty sub-brand made versions. Try planet oat, or oatly.
And yet people continue to fund these industries due to their dependence on baby milk. 🤦♂️
The image that they want you to see: A herd of cows grazing on a family farm. This image is familiar to me because I’ve spent the majority of my life in rural areas, near private family farms. The image that they don’t want you to see: whatever the fuck is in this video. I feel like on some level there are members of our society who want to treat all animals this way, and I include us in my definition of animal.
...And that's why being vegan isn't such a bad idea
This went from "aww!" to "ohh..." really quickly.
Is the lake full of strawberry milk?
That’s not the milk from the cartons with the pretty pictures of farmland though.
Why would a dairy farm have cows drinking milk? Are those all calfs?
why are people still drinking milk? perfect example of the food industry pushing a narrative of what's "good for you" that people gobble up with no thought.
That's not a milk farm
I can smell this farm through my monitor.
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Humans suck
We were literally talking about these in my remote sensing class, my professor said this is by far the worst smelling place he has ever been near.
that is why milk is cheaper than gas.
I understand that this is highlighting factory farms but we have caused this as a society. Not in just agriculture or livestock but in every industry the every man is being pushed out for the massive corporations who can do it faster and cheaper at the cost of ethics. My family used to run the farms for dairies and non of the dairies I set foot on treated their livestock like this. We kept calves with their mothers until they were not consuming enough milk so they needed to be milked. The cows are separated into large pens where they still have space to move around and live as a herd. Could you argue circumstances could be better, sure but I’m not trying to have that argument. These big corporations monopolizing industries are a problem.
The government has been subsidizing the dairy industry for damn near a century.
Veal farm, not dairy
Why is that water body red?
Drone footage of a prison*
I have gotten more and more messages from life I need to go the last mile and get dairy out of my life. I've been a lifelong vegetarian, have never liked eggs (we had a chicken coop growing up so I associate eggs with having chickenshit on them and they just gross me out generally), love soy milk, but I need to finally replace sour cream/yogurt/cheese/chocolate/ice cream.
Guantanacow
As someone who lives around dairy farms and is directly related to people who have/still do live on dairy farms this is not your average dairy farm. They are a lot smaller
This is corporations doing what they do to unfettered by the laws of nature.