May Safely Graze contributor Wendy Ward is a retired clinical psychologist and university lecturer in the UK and New Zealand.  “Until I lived in the King Country and was surrounded by dairy farms, I had swallowed the myth of contented cows grazing in paddocks. I learned the dairy industry is based on cruel practices. The worst being the removal of new-born calves from their mothers at birth. These new-borns are trucked to slaughterhouses to be killed. The dairy cow is a milking machine. Her maternal instincts are crushed by the yearly removal of her hard-born calf.”

“DAILY OFFERINGS”

Walking back to the farm
I saw ute and trailer being mobbed by Mums
distraught and mooing.
The daily offering of new-born calves, taken away to be sorted:
Heifer, bull, bobby, longish life, short life, no life.
A daily offering, laid on the altar of profit.

Even if people here were starving,
Would it be right?
Can we sanction these
Induced abortions
To fit farm timetables and the killing of new-born calves?
This is a country of so much milk and meat
We are dying of excess.

It’s a familiar mantra:
Consumer demand overseas
Free trade, exports
GDP.
As dairy farmers say
“If you want butter and cheese to eat
And milk to drink, then there’s a cost.”
Citizens are waking up
Realizing the power of their wallets
and voices.
Remembering each one of us counts
In the choices we make.

What of the future?
When land is worn out
Water polluted?
We think of ancient peoples
Who made daily offerings of animals and birds,
To appease all-powerful gods.
Are we any different by placating a different God?