20 Jul 2012
Signing off for a couple of weeks
Transition Culture will be going to sleep today until the middle of August as I turn off my computer and phone and spend some time with my family. Thanks for your interest and support over the past few months. I’d like to leave you with a request that you support the NFU’s ‘It’s time to back our dairy farmers’ campaign, opposing the cuts in prices paid to dairy farmers due to be introduced August 1st.
Cuts will mean that the price farmers are paid will no longer cover the price of actually producing milk, having a disastrous impact on small family farms, and boosting the case that the only ‘efficient’ economies of scale for producing milk is in huge dairy complexes where the cows are kept indoors all year round, and fed silage and pellets. There are various thing you can do to support the campaign, one of the key ones is not to buy you milk from places that don’t pay farmers a sustainable milk price. The worst offenders? Asda, Morrisons and, surprisingly, the Co-operative. Buy your milk from places that pay a milk price that covers the cost of production. Better still, buy it from a local dairy. In the same way that there has been a ‘Move your money’, campaign recently to withdraw support from an unfair banking system, what we need now is a “Mooove your Milk” campaign (sorry, you can tell I need a break). Thanks folks, see you soon. In the meantime, don’t forget to book for the 2012 Transition Network conference in September, it’s going to be fantastic.
Andrew Gillett
20 Jul 10:04am
Shouldn’t we be moving away from milk anyway due to its high carbon footprint? I use oat milk now (partly due to seemingly developing lactose intolerance). Of course, if milk is to be used , it should be local.
Annie Leymarie
20 Jul 11:04am
Modern dairy farming is extremely cruel, more intensive than meat production, more environmentally damaging, and dairy contributes to health problems in humans. Cows are made pregnant at a very young age through what amounts to rape, then kept pregnant throughout their short life and murdered. Each child they produce is taken away from them (and often killed), despite child and mother bellowing their pain. They are kept jailed for many months, unable to fulfil their need to align themselves with the magnetic field (watch them do this in fields). Practically 100% of them (including in organic dairies) suffer from very painful laminitis and many also from mastitis – made worse by milking machines. All this makes them prone to TB but the latest policy move is towards exterminating badgers – a scapegoat species. Livestock account for 18% of all global warming gases while all transport (cars, trains and planes combined) account for 12.5% (FAO, 2006). Excellent substitutes such as oat, hazelnut or almond milk exist and many more could be produced – dairy farmers need not be out of work and the environment could greatly benefit. What are we waiting for to make a crucial shift? And whilst in transition, lets insist on local, organic and the highest standards possible – for everyone’s sake!
Antony Melville
20 Jul 4:16pm
Fair trade English milk please!
Darren Woodiwiss
20 Jul 4:59pm
Local milk is a difficult one, I get Organic milk from our last remaining milkman and pay 72p per pint for the privilage but due to economic pressures they had to close their bottling plant and so now, here at the south of Leicestershire our milk comes from Tewksbury.
I have no idea how to find a LOCAL milk supplier but will look into it.
As a Co-op member I will be writing in shortly after this post to complain, thanks for the heads up Rob… I only watched the news for the first time in a couple of weeks this morning so have only just heard about this affair.
Mick Mack
7 Aug 9:42am
Resilience is an attitude as well as a practise – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19160604
Candy
23 Aug 4:37pm
Update…the Co-Op seem to have seen sense on this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18930618