Dairy Farmers: Enter for a Chance to Win a Deborah Meaden Business Consultation
Attention dairy farmers: signs indicate that human consumption of cows’ milk is headed for the history books, while plant milk sales are booming. Things have been getting progressively worse for the dairy industry, and although it can’t compare to the suffering that cows and their babies endure on dairy farms, we know it hasn’t been an easy time for farmers.
We’re here to help you move with the changing tides – all you need to do is get in touch and tell us why you want to switch to growing crops for dairy-free milks. Dragons’ Den‘s Deborah Meaden will provide one standout applicant with a 15-minute one-on-one business consultation via Zoom to help you get started.
One winner will be selected based on their motivation and enthusiasm for making the transition from dairy farming to growing plants and their compelling and thoughtful use of the written word to convey this.
Farmers who apply also have the opportunity to win a half-day professional consultation on their farm with agriculture experts from Tolhurst Organic on successfully making the transition from dairy farming to growing organic vegetables or arable crops.
Why Go Dairy-Free?
Successful companies adapt to the times. The dairy industry was already in financial trouble before the COVID-19 crisis, but the current situation has made dairy farming even more unsustainable – and that’s just financially.
Because of the massive amounts of greenhouse-gas emissions and the hundreds of thousands of tonnes of slurry they produce, dairy farms take a massive toll on the British countryside and the environment as a whole. Each cow raised by the dairy industry also consumes up to 150 litres of water per day.
The industry is also relentlessly cruel. Cows are gentle, intelligent animals, who, when given the chance, will nurture their young and form lifelong friendships with one another – pleasures denied them on dairy farms. Newborn calves are taken away from their mothers shortly after birth so that the milk meant for them can be consumed by humans. As dairy farmers know all too well, distraught mother cows and their babies often cry out for each other for days. This suffering is devastating – and can be avoided simply by switching to plant-based milks.
What Will Happen to the Cows?
Change on this scale rarely happens overnight, but this would be a good time for farmers to stop artificially inseminating cows to produce more animals to replace those who are sent to slaughter when their milk production slows. Doing so would gradually decrease the size of herds, which means fields used to raise crops to feed them could be used to produce food for humans instead.
