The Rural Voice, 2003-04, Page 14Jeffrey Carter
Milking cows shouldn't be an uglg business
Jeffrey
Carter is a
freelance
journalist
based in
Dresden,
Ontario.
Bernard Rollins had it right.
The University of Colorado
professor, who specializes in
agricultural ethics, told a crowd of
pork producers in Shakespeare a few
years back that farmers and animals
alike have been forced into
uncomfortable little boxes for the
sake of profit.
Rollins said agriculture has
become industrialized to a point that
people and animals are treated like
mere cogs in a machine. Lost have
been the ideals of husbandry that
suggest animals should be placed in
an environment most suited to their
needs. People, too, have been
prodded to conform with this vision.
Rollins and his views came to
mind when Dr. Thomas Fuhrmann
spoke in Lansing, Michigan at a
recent dairy conference.
Fuhrmann is a veterinarian
working in Arizona where the
average herd consists of 1,700
milking cows. He talked about the
need for better management of both
people and animals in these large
herd settings.
"The single most important thing
you can do is shove hundredweights
of milk out of the front door ... The
cow is nothing more than the
production unit. The more that widget
works, the better," Fuhrmann said.
Cows are not widgets.
Consider, for instance, a cow kept
in a stanchion over the winter that's
let out onto pasture in the spring. If
ever cows experience joy, that's one
of the times. Many will kick up their
heels, seemingly for the sheer
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pleasure of it.
Fuhrmann, questioned about his
referral to cows as widgets, said he
was just trying to drive home a point:
with today's large herds the emphasis
must be placed on management. He
stressed the need to train the people
who work with dairy cattle in the
basics of animal husbandry.
Still, it seemed a'mixed message.
Are cattle simply widgets that eject
milk or are they living, breathing
entities that can react to the pleasures
of unrestricted movement on a warm
spring day?
In the United States, especially,
there's movement toward the widget
mentality. There, many dairy owners
are learning Spanish to communicate
with their employees. Fuhrmann
made a reference to paying $17 an
hour for such workers in a rather
pathetic attempt at humour. Dairy
workers in the U.S., even the
experienced, can be hired on for far
less.
Ironically, the dairy owners, given
the fluctuation in U.S. fluid prices,
sometimes find themselves working
for even less than their employees.
Canadian dairy farmers should be
thankful for supply -management. It's
not a perfect system, but it provides a
measure of stability and fairness for
farmers that can — if the will is there
— be passed on down to their
workers and their animals.
This might also be an argument to
be used in Canada to win support for
the marketing system among the
general population. That's important.
Decisions continue to be made at the
World Trade Organization that may
ultimately lead to the demise of
supply -management.
Is the system something
Canadians can afford to lose?
Dairying in Canada need not
follow the increasingly ugly path
that's being pursued south of the
border.0
The Rural Voice
welcomes your opinions for
our Feedback letters to the
editor column.