acompassionateworld

As another week begins, I’d like to thank everyone who sent such a resounding message to the UK Government over the news that 30 or so British egg producers were failing to comply with the ban on battery cages. This is despite repeated assurances from the UK egg industry that it was ready for the long-awaited barren cage ban that came in on New Year’s Day. Over 11,000 people took action in just two days! Thank you so much.

Last week seemed like a whirl! It came off the back of a planning trip to New York. It started with a catch up with the Tubney Charitable Trust, the wonderful organization that has given game-changing support to Compassion’s work with food companies and our European campaigning. Then it was deep into budget meetings with my senior team ahead of our next trustee’s meeting.

Mid-week saw me writing for my book on the future of food before brainstorming with Roland Bonney, director of the Food Animal Initiative (FAI) in Oxford. FAI is dedicated to developing practical and economic farming systems that treat animals better.

Thursday, a five-year planning session with my home team was followed by a highly engaging two hour session in Devon. I was at the Duchy College rural leadership course at Dartington Hall. I led a two-hour session with about twenty future leaders of the farming community on how to feed a growing population humanely and sustainably. I made the case for why factory farming and so-called ‘sustainable intensification’ were far from sustainable. That returning farm animals to the land and cutting down on the huge food waste inherent in intensive livestock rearing were the ways forward. That we needed effective food production, rather than the current scenario worldwide, where nearly half the food produced never reaches a human mouth. More in future posts…

Friday saw me on a permanently housed dairy in Somerset talking about the future of dairying. It was a great opportunity to share perspectives and learn more. There is much we still need to do to ensure that, during the grazing season, cows are kept in fields where they belong.

A brief stop for coffee, cake and conversation with one of our major supporters rounded off a week on the road. On Saturday, I was delighted to collect Helen, my wife, from hospital after a ten-day stay. Today, we’ll be with our adopted hens before the next week begins.

We take antibiotics for granted. We rely upon them to treat infections caused by bacteria. They’re among the most frequently prescribed drugs we take. But their use also creates opportunities for resistant bacteria to develop. This is why antibiotics should be prescribed only when they’re necessary. Like most, if not all, medications, their misuse has important, even life-threatening consequences.

Take, for example, the prescription of low-level doses of antibiotics for intensively farmed animals. These drugs are not to treat specific sick animals but entire populations of chickens or pigs. Antibiotics are routinely given because of their stressful, unsanitary, overcrowded and confined conditions. They’re often physiologically stretched to the limit to maximise productivity. In short, factory farmed animals are inevitably at high risk of infection.

The antibiotics are given as a pre-emptive move to prevent and control bacterial infections. If these animals were not kept in factory farms but instead outdoors in humane and sustainable conditions, this indiscriminate use of antibiotics would not be necessary.

Farm animal welfare and the use of antibiotics is an issue that is not only the concern of Compassion. It is also the concern of our friends at the Soil Association and Sustain, the alliance for better food and farming.

Earlier this year, I wrote here about how we came together to form the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics. Together we aim to halt the routine use of antibiotics in farmed animals.

Today, I want to bring you up to date with the latest developments, particularly our new report, ‘Case Study of a Health Crisis’.

Our report shows that over-use of antibiotics in factory farming, especially at low doses over several days, is contributing to the huge threat of a world without effective cures for bacterial infections. We set out the evidence that:

• Farm animals are breeding grounds for antibiotic-resistant strains of Salmonella, Campylobacter and E. coli; • Farm animals harbour antibiotic-resistant strains of MRSA that could become virulent;

and has contributed to:

• Diminishing effectiveness in human medicine of critically important antibiotics such as cephalosporins.

The Report’s Foreword is written by Professor Christopher Butler, Head of the Institute of Primary Care and Public Health at Cardiff University and Dean of Research in the School of Medicine. He writes that the challenge is to ‘reserve antibiotics for those who will achieve meaningful clinical benefit and to keep them away from those who are unlikely to benefit’.

We want EU-wide action to reduce the use of non-therapeutic antibiotics in farm animals. We want a target to reduce overall antibiotic use on EU farms by 50% by 2015. This should go hand-in-hand with specific controls on the use in livestock of ‘critically important’ human antibiotics.

To be clear, we thoroughly believe in the use of antibiotics to treat genuine illness in farm animals. But to use antibiotics as a pre-emptive measure, a tool to prop-up an otherwise unhealthy and unsustainable system, is simply unacceptable.

This report is available free to download. Please visit now our Save Our Antibiotics campaign page on our web site.

Professor Butler speaks of the need for ‘Antibiotic Stewardship’ to ‘preserve the precious reservoir of antibiotic susceptibility that humanity has left to it’.

It’s something we need urgently. If we don’t, then factory farming will not only continue to cause unimaginable suffering to farm animals, it will also threaten the future of our antibiotics; and with it, our own health and well-being.

My first post on New Year’s Day this year celebrated the ban on barren battery hen cages in the European Union. On January 1, 2012 it became illegal to keep chickens in these cages. But be assured, our work doesn’t stop there; far from it! Now we focus even more intently on other areas of factory farming in Europe and internationally. Our aim for this year is to take the fight against factory farming to new audiences across the world.

Based on the number of visits made last year to A Compassionate World, two of the three most popular blogs were about chickens.

The most popular, ‘Have you seen the news?’ celebrated the historic agreement reached in the USA that could see an end to the barren battery cage there.

‘Why is animal welfare of any importance?’ was the second most popular blog. Here, I explained why Compassion is concerned with farmed animals. It isn’t just because of their welfare. It’s also because factory farming is a wastefully inefficient way of producing food and it harms the environment.

Coming in third place was ‘Reflections on a cage ban’ where I made the link between the EU barren cage ban and the ex-battery hens adopted by my wife Helen and I.

Huckle

‘Back at home, our new hen nestles into a bed of straw,’ I wrote. ‘It’s the first time she has ever made a nest. She lays an egg. I can see the difference made to the life of this one sensitive creature. How wondrous then that, from 1st January next year, the tireless efforts of compassionate people everywhere will have touched the lives of so many millions more.’

Another chicken related topic I wrote about was our Good Farm Animal Welfare Awards. This included the Good Egg Award given to companies that pledge to use or sell only cage-free eggs.

But I didn’t just focus on chickens in last year’s 65 blog posts. I also wrote about the successful campaign against the proposed mega-dairy at Nocton, Lincolnshire. In November, I travelled through California’s Central Valley. I saw for myself the devastating impact that mega-dairies are having on the environment, human health and animal welfare. I saw how thousands of cows are confined in muddy paddocks and fed unnatural diets. With such great progress being made with chickens, it’s plain wrong to bring cows into confinement when they belong in fields during the grazing season.

This past year saw us add a new feature called the Factory Farming Facts video series. Five short videos explain the impact factory farming has on animals and our food, health, resources and environment. If you’ve not seen them already, please do take a look. Also please take a moment to visit ‘Facts and Figures’ and ‘Jargon Buster’ to deepen your understanding of factory farming and get the information you need to persuade that relation, friend or colleague who isn’t yet convinced. Can’t find what you need there? Send me a question at ‘Ask Philip’!

My very first blog post in May 2009 focused on Compassion’s founder, ex-dairy farmer Peter Roberts. He and his wife, Anna, began this organisation when they saw chicken battery farming replacing traditional methods of farming. This wasn’t progress, they thought, it was cruel madness. Long before many others, they made the link between factory farming and world hunger. Sadly, Peter is no longer with us but this Christmas Anna, now in her eighties, spoke to me about her pleasure in knowing battery cages are now illegal in the EU; “Wonderful” she said, toasting with her teacup!

Thanks to you, our campaign against factory farming is making real progress. I look forward to seeing you here at ‘A compassionate world’ in 2012 so that we can continue to work together to bring about true compassion in world farming.

Trafalgar Square, London: I’m with Joanna Lumley on the top deck of a red Routemaster bus. The ‘Absolutely Fabulous’ actress is with me to launch a new campaign against the long distance transport of animals for slaughter and fattening. Sadly, it’s a trade that appears to be resurgent, at least from Britain to the continent.

After the New Year’s festivities, back-to-work Britain has been battered with gale-force winds. Outside, it’s another blustery day. Fences have been torn down, trains have been disrupted. But it hasn’t stopped a scrum of journalists and photographers turning up to catch the moment. We clamber down the bus’s narrow passenger staircase. In the shadow of the pillars and domes of the National Gallery, the unmistakably stylish figure of Joanna poses dramatically for the cameras. Behind her, our bus is decked out in a white banner advertisement showing sheep peering haplessly from the slats of a livestocktruck. Beside it are the words, “They can’t ring the bell when they want to get off”. It’s the beginning of a nationwide campaign to renew the spotlight on a trade that has caused unimaginable suffering to so many animals for far too long.

Three times more animals, mainly sheep and calves, were exported live from Britain last year than the year before. It’s a deeply worrying trend. Over 200 trucks trundled through Kent to the continent in 2011, taking sheep to their deaths in far away slaughterhouses and calves to continental veal farms that all too often operate standards so poor they would be illegal in Britain. Over 75,000 animals in all were exported live from Britain last year. Thankfully, it’s a far cry from the 2.5 million animals that used to cross the English Channel before the nationwide protests in the early 1990s. But it’s a worrying increase nonetheless.

Joanna is resplendent in a slim black outfit topped off with a burgundy-beige tweed jacket, golden hair tied back in a pony-tail. She speaks fluidly, passionately and persuasively: “The cruelty involved in the trade is shocking!” She points to new footage showing animals caught up in the trade. They are exhausted, without food or water, forced to eat their filthy bedding. The scenes are a snapshot of the millions of farm animals transported across the European Union on journeys sometimes lasting up to 2 days. “The numbers from Britain have reduced dramatically since 15 years ago but are again on the rise” Joanna explains, “this campaign is aimed at bringing the spotlight back on the issue.”

Joanna is a committed and tireless campaigner, not least on this issue, having taken part in countless media events and press conferences calling for an end to the trade. I remember one day in particular in the mid-1990s when Joanna helped us launch a new undercover investigation showing the latest evidence of horrendous cruelty involved in animal transport. Joanna was watching the film for the first time at the conference. As she watched, she cried. That was the photo that captured the imagination of the cameras and the hearts of the general public.

A decade and a half later, we’re launching a new campaign; this time aimed at finishing off a remnant trade that really should have been left behind in the 20th Century. Buses throughout Britain will carry our message over the coming weeks. We will increase the pressure on Brussels, Westminster and Ramsgate; the latter being the only British port taking live animals for slaughter. We will encourage people everywhere to join the campaign – www.stopliveexports.com Your support, as ever, is hugely appreciated. Atop the red bus, Joanna declares 2012 as “the year for change – let’s make it happen!” I couldn’t agree more.

In 2008, Compassion recognised McDonald’s with a Good Egg Award for committing to source only cage-free eggs for all their European outlets by 2012. The number of chickens set to benefit annually from this policy is 400,000.

Regrettably, McDonald’s in the USA appears not to be keeping up with their European counterparts.

A recent undercover investigation by Mercy for Animals (MfA) documented shocking animal cruelty at the farms of one of the suppliers to McDonald’s in the USA.

Hidden-camera footage detailed hens crammed into filthy wire cages unable to stretch their wings. Investigators caught on tape workers burning off the beaks of young chicks without any painkiller and then callously throwing them into cages. The bodies of decomposing hens were found alongside hens still laying eggs for human consumption.

Compassion applauds McDonald’s in Europe for their enlightened animal welfare policies. But we condemn the treatment of chickens in the USA as documented by Mercy for Animals.

We will work with MfA and other American animal protection organisations as well as McDonald’s USA to ensure they implement the same animal welfare policies as their European colleagues. It’s encouraging to see McDonald’s recognise the issues raised by MfA’s investigation. It said the video documented behaviour which was ‘disturbing and completely unacceptable’ and dropped the company as one of its egg suppliers.

Living with hens has helped me appreciate them more. To understand their complex behaviours. To see that what happens to them matters to them. To realise just how much it means to them to feel the dust under their feathers, the sun on their wings, and the soil beneath their feet. It has given me an even greater sense of the deprivation and suffering inherent in cage-farming of hens. It burns my heart and offends my intellect to realise that two in every three hens farmed commercially in the world live their lives in cages. Devoid of the stimulations for which they have come to need through millions of years of evolution.

It’s getting better in Europe, with the recent ban on barren battery cages. But remaining is the travesty of the so-called “enriched” cage; bigger cages with woefully designed objects at best offering a pallid version of what hens really need to carry out their natural behaviour. It’s almost as if a scientist looked at individual behaviours in isolation and oversimplified them to the point of meaninglessness. Then along came a penny-pinching engineer with a fraction of the budget needed to deliver. The result falls well short of what is needed; a crude obtusity of a system in place of a true solution. Thankfully, food companies big and small, together with consumers are seeing through this illusion and are choosing cage-free eggs; better all round for the welfare of the hens and the quality of the resulting food.

When I’m with my hens, I find no need to be anthropomorphic; to project human feelings to animals. To me, watching hens for any length of time makes it obvious that they are neither human nor automata. They are sentient creatures that can feel pain, suffering and well-being, whose needs and wants we deny to the impoverishment of the very soul of our society. Alternatively, we can let them live how they are meant to live; and rejoice at the better world it creates for us all.

You can read previous instalments of ‘Living with hens’ here: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V.

Well, it’s finally happened; Europe has banned barren battery hen cages. It’s been 12 long years since the agreement was first made. And there’s been times along the way when we thought we would lose it; Poland and it’s cohorts fought hard to get it delayed. But at last we’ve reached the day that motivated Compassion’s founder way back in the 1960s. The day when it’s illegal to keep hens in tiny, bare-wire cages. The paradigm now shifts. And we’ve taken a huge stride toward ending all forms of factory farming. Huge thanks to everyone who helped to make it happen!

New Year is a time of both reflection and looking forard. We can look toward a better future for Europe’s hens. And, by way of reflection, here’s what I wrote way back in 1999 when it was first won:

REFLECTION (1999)

It takes a lot to get something banned. Especially when that something is dominant throughout an entire industry. Churning out a staple product – eggs – for the best part of the European continent. Yet, we did it. The battery cage is to be banned.

Nearly a decade ago, I joined CIWF. Veal crates had just been banned in the UK. Legislation to ban them on the continent was but a dream. Breeding pigs were still being crated or chained throughout their pregnancies in this country. And, if you talked about animals as sentient beings, the general response – “animals are what?”

Now, a decade on, Europe too is phasing out the veal crate, the UK’s pregnant sows can no longer be confined, and not only do people talk freely of animals as sentient, the EU has written it into law!

As for the battery cage, the epitome of what we mean by the term ‘factory farming’, achieving a ban seemed a mountainous challenge. It was the horror of the battery, and just this challenge that, 32 years ago, inspired a man of great courage and vision, Peter Roberts, to set up CIWF.

This summer, 32 years on, animal campaigners throughout Europe gathered in Luxembourg for the outcome of EU negotiations that would decide the future for cages. I will never forget the overwhelming sense of elation at hearing that cages would be banned! Standing on the steps of the Council building, nervously hanging on to every word, as Nick Brown, the UK’s Agriculture Minister explained the detail of the agreement. An enduring feeling of privilege at being there on the day that history was made. An end in sight to the nightmare of the battery, and the beginning of a dream come true.

It took a mammoth effort. Over tens of years, perhaps hundreds of animal welfare groups did their bit, thousands of people protested, and millions bought free-range eggs. The political and economic odds always seemed to be stacked against us. But together we did it. We have pushed back the boundaries. There is still much more to do.

In achieving this, the most far-reaching piece of legislation in the history of animal welfare, we need no longer look to future challenges with fear or despondency. Time scales can be frightening. But great things don’t happen overnight. If conservationists plant a new oak wood, it may take a century or two to grow. Yet, agreement to ban battery cages in Europe took only 32 years! Yes, 32 years too long. But great cruelties – engrained in the very fabric of our society – take time to eradicate. That time has come. We now have momentum. There is hope. By continuing to work together, there will be compassion in this cruel world after all.

Most days are punctuated by triumphant clucks and staccato crows that follow the laying of an egg. Almost without exception, our hens lay in the straw-lined nest compartment in the coop. Apart from mid-winter, we’ve been blessed with two or more eggs a day from our four hens. Their breeding has programmed them to lay around 300 eggs a year; quite a feat when you consider that their wild ancestors would probably lay 5-6 eggs in a clutch before incubating them when breeding. The physical strain of such a high productivity can be immense. In the barren battery cage, the twin effect of not being able to exercise and the high calcium demands of profuse egg laying mean that osteoporosis and brittle bones afflicts all caged hens, leading to huge suffering. Our hens, along with their free range cousins, are of course free to exercise, something vital to both their behavioural well-being and their health.

Battery eggs from caged hens would have unappetisingly pale yolks if it wasn’t for the chemical colourant incorporated into their monotonous food ration. By contrast, our hens need no such artificial props to help them produce healthy-looking eggs. They have deep ochre or orange-coloured yolks that reflect the variety of their diet. At regular intervals, my wife Helen boxes up the eggs and distributes them amongst eager neighbours, friends and family. With yolks flavoured and coloured by the hens’ varied endeavour, we are now well used to getting comments back telling us that our hens lay the best eggs tasted; better even than commercial free range eggs!

Most of our eggs are given to people in our local community. Our son, Luke, enjoys one or two at the weekend for his breakfast. From time to time, Helen will have a bake-fest, resulting in the freezer being stuffed full of quiches and bakes of every description.

Helen’s mum, Anna Roberts, is now in her eighties. In the 1960s, Anna and her dairy farmer husband, Peter, set up Compassion in World Farming to campaign against the tide of factory farming that was sweeping the agricultural landscape. When three small girls were tucked up in bed, Anna and Peter would be in the back room of their country cottage churning out the latest campaign literature calling for a fair deal for hens and other farm animals. It seems that hens have a special place in Anna’s heart. And wanting to see them out of battery cages was a big motivation for their work. Encouraging people to choose free range eggs instead of eating the product of the battery was a big part of her life.

A decade into the 21st Century, Anna has little appetite and eats like a garden sparrow. There is one exception; when we prepare one of Helen’s home-laid egg quiches. Here, Anna seems to rediscover her appetite, eating every last crumb! It is wonderful to see her enjoying a good meal, particularly provided by our hens. It is a fitting way for them to give something back for all the hard work and sacrifice during those earlier years. Days when speaking out for farm animals was often seen as a cranky eccentricity; a far cry from the mainstream concern of consumers, companies and legislators that it now is, at least, in Europe. Without doubt, Anna has laid the foundations on which the modern movement for farm animal welfare is built; testimony to a compassionate heart, a strong will and a far-reaching vision of how the world should be.

You can read previous instalments of ‘Living with hens’ here: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV.

This week, I was asked by the PR firm involved in the proposal for the Nocton mega-dairy why we’ve included industrialised dairy in our new campaign. My answer: Because you made it an issue.

Read more about our battle for food sense and against factory farming’s new frontier here.

There is real progress being made for farm animal welfare in the European Union. The New Year will see us celebrate a ban on barren battery cages for laying hens. The long-term use of cruel sow stalls for pregnant pigs will be banned the year after. Veal crates – narrow premature confines for calves – are already history.

However, factory farming’s new frontier is the US-style mega-dairy. I saw dozens of these recently in California’s Central Valley and they were far from pretty. Thousands of cows crowded on dirt; not a blade of grass anywhere. This is what is known as ‘zero-grazing’.

We were pleased that, after months of campaigning, a proposal for a 3,700 cow mega-dairy in Lincolnshire, UK was withdrawn. The average dairy herd in Britain is currently about a hundred cows. We were deeply disappointed when Powys County Council ignored strong opposition to agree a 1,000 cow mega-dairy at Leighton near Welshpool. It is a set-back that has only strengthened our resolve to oppose this new threat, not just in the UK, but across Europe.

I don’t believe that big always means bad; intensification is the real crux of the issue. Britain’s biggest breeding pig farm, for example, is run along extensive lines with the sows kept outdoors. But highly intensive farming methods often go hand-in-hand with scale, as is the case with mega-dairies and meat chicken farms.

Some in government seem to have fallen in love with the term, ‘sustainable intensification’. It’s an oxymoron, gobbledygook, a contradiction in terms. Increased intensification is the route to diminished sustainability and to yet more animal welfare problems.

It’s hard to see how it can be sustainable to keep animals permanently indoors; especially when it involves moving dairy cows off pasture and onto feed grown elsewhere, often with copious fossil-fuel based fertilisers and chemical pesticides.

Despite the undoubted progress in Europe, 80% of farm animals continue to be factory farmed. That is why we’ve launched our new campaign, Filthy Business. To draw attention to the fact that factory farming is still very real in Europe. And that our taxes are paying for it!

By far the greatest proportion of factory farmed animals in Europe is intensively reared poultry. Next come pigs. Numerically, dairy cows make up a very small proportion of the total of animals factory farmed.

Estimates for intensive dairying – where the cows are permanently housed (zero-grazed) on farms big or small – are hard to come by. An industry estimate for intensive dairying in the UK suggests less than 10% of cows are permanently housed; we estimate that the overall figure for Europe is similar. If anyone has better estimates, we’d be glad to hear from you. Estimate or not, one thing is clear; if we don’t fight mega-dairies, if we don’t expose ‘sustainable intensification’ for the nonsense that it is, yet more animals and the quality of our food will suffer.

The battle for food sense is well and truly on. Help us fight the Filthy Business of factory farming. Help us ensure a better future for Europe’s farmers, farm animals and our food.

Thank you.

Since I last wrote in September about CCTV in slaughterhouses, I am pleased to report on encouraging developments at the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) on this very important issue.

Thanks to pressure from individual businesses and retailers, the number of slaughterhouses with CCTV has more than doubled in the last year. According to the FSA, 19% of red meat slaughterhouses and 29% of white meat slaughterhouses, which account for about half of all animals slaughtered, have installed CCTV.

This would not have happened without the undercover investigations of Animal Aid who caught on tape appalling cruelty to animals on the slaughterhouse floor with their investigations. Congratulations to them for bringing this to light!

According to the Food Standards Agency, major retailers who now require CCTV in their suppliers’ slaughterhouses include Asda, The Co-operative, Iceland, Marks & Spencer, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose.

Although the current situation is for voluntary installation, Compassion continues to press FSA and DEFRA to require slaughterhouses to have CCTV in operation with no exceptions. It is the least we can do for animals at the time of their slaughter when they are most vulnerable.

According to a recent FSA report, the estimated installation cost ranges from £100-200 for a simple system to many thousands for a more complex one. For example, a hard disc recorder system is about £2,000. These costs make it affordable for slaughterhouses. Indeed, as we know from our own personal experiences, many businesses, small and large, invest in CCTV for various reasons. So, why not make it compulsory in slaughterhouses?

Clearly, CCTV in any situation is no guarantee of things being issue-free. But it can only help to promote best practice and deter the scenes of cruelty uncovered by Animal Aid.

The British Meat Processors Association is reported to be cautious about compulsory CCTV in slaughterhouses. According to media reports, BMPA director Stephen Rossides expressed concern.

“Does it, of itself, prevent animal welfare breaches?” he asked. “Ultimately, this comes down to proper training, and responsible and humane personal behaviour by individuals, though management should also inculcate a culture of high animal welfare awareness”.

Whereas I agree on the importance of training and professional behaviour, they do not constitute in themselves an argument against CCTV in slaughterhouses. No amount of regulation or training will stop anyone from behaving cruelly when slaughtering animals if they are determined to do so. But when such incidents occur, having them documented on video will help to ensure rules are upheld and that offenders are punished to the fullest extent possible.

At its meeting on November 15, the FSA board agreed a set of guidelines for slaughterhouses that use CCTV for animal welfare purposes. Among its considerations is a requirement that the RSPCA is given access to footage. This is something I welcome.

Currently, the FSA is undergoing an animal welfare survey which will form a second report scheduled for publication next year. This report will determine whether the FSA will recommend to DEFRA that CCTV in slaughterhouses become mandatory. As I said, Compassion will keep up the pressure for this. I truly hope you will, too. After all, FSA chief executive Tim Smith commented at the November 15 board meeting that letters from the public about animal welfare are the “single largest” topic in his mailbox.

Xalapa, Mexico: It could be an English upland scene, except the light is so good the grass looks greener than I’ve ever seen. Small groups of black and white cows are dotted across a rolling landscape. A tiny hummingbird flits like an electric bumble-bee around a roadside conifer.

This is southeast Mexico and we’re at an altitude of 2,000 metres on the lower slopes of an ancient volcano. Our ascent was coloured by the sight of dairy cows eating grass like they should. The contrast from California two days ago is stark; cows grazing naturally versus a land perversely peppered with mega-dairies; industrial facilities with thousands of cows crowded in one place.

We’ve stopped outside the village of Acajete and look toward the Sierra Madre mountain range shrouded in the morning mist. In the distance, the bustling city of Xalape winks in the sunlight. A farm-hand walks up the hill carrying three white buckets. Wearing a blue Ferrari tee-shirt, white wellies and a baseball cap, he waves and beckons warmly. We are treated to an impromptu tour of the farm.

Ana Maria Frauzoni Hernandez, a farmer herself and veterinarian, arrives to take us round. We are taken through a cluster of modest flat-roofed buildings that comprise the farmhouse and the dairy. There’s an unmistakable smell in the air; of baby-sweet dairy mixed with a slight hint of manure. Hernandez explains that this is her brother’s farm. She talks about respecting the cow as a noble animal. We walk past scattered trees to where 20 calves are loafing in the sun. I stand in the inevitable cow-pat.

It’s just one of 34 farms in a local dairy cooperative. It’s a pretty big farm by European standards. There are 500 cows on this farm, but you really wouldn’t know it as the cows gently graze in small clusters across the hillside.

We watch as forty Friesian cows are milked on the hillside. The cows and two farm-hands stand amongst a smattering of silver milk-churns. Hernandez explains that the cows are milked twice a day. Her father used to milk them three times a day but the cows got stressed. When milking is over, a horse carries the churns up the hill. The cows walk up the hill too. It’s wonderful to see them walking naturally; without the bloated bulging udders and splayed back legs so characteristic of what we saw on California’s mega-dairies.

The cows here are kept outdoors all year round. No chemicals, preventative antibiotics or hormones are used. A bit of supplementary food is offered when the grass is short.

Hernandez tells us that the cows here have an average lifespan of 20 years. Again, hugely different to the mega-dairies, where cows are often worn out and sent for slaughter at just 5-6 years. She reflects that cows on mega-dairies are likely to suffer stress from the way they’re kept.

Toward the end of the tour, Hernandez laments at the difficulty of getting a profitable price for the milk. It’s a familiar theme on both sides of the Atlantic. And with all systems big and small; the memory is still fresh of the tears of a Californian farmer, talking about the suicide of his friend, a large-scale dairy farmer.

The milk here is sold under the name, ‘Joyalat’ – Joyal I’m told meaning Jewel. Hernandez sees the milk as “white gold”. She shares customer feedback about how good the milk is here, apparently because the cows graze naturally on grass full of nutrients.

We tasted the yoghurt from the farm; it was full of flavour, very smooth and with no hint of sharpness; delicious. A poster in the dairy window proclaims proudly that “The best milk in the world is produced in Mexico”. Today, I’m inclined to agree.

Central Valley, California: I’m inside the world’s largest cheese factory. It’s huge; complete with security guards, visitor centre and restaurant. White-coated workers are busy making orange-coloured cheese. It’s the culmination of my journey through California.

The drive here was along a road littered with mega-dairies; industrial dairy farms with thousands of cows crowded in one place. I passed a livestock auction market where young cows are bought and worn-out ‘cull’ cows sold for their final journey.

Earlier, I flew out in a small plane. I asked the pilot whether we would fly over any mega-dairies; he was concerned he might not find one for us. He needn’t have worried. Within minutes of take-off, we flew over our first. Then came another, and another; thick and fast. They were like angry scars on the face of this regimented countryside; muddy-brown blots amongst vast fields of uniform crops.

Thousands of cows stood crowded on dirt; not a blade of grass in sight. This was ‘zero-grazing’. Lagoons the size of Olympic swimming pools, some like small reservoirs, captured the inevitable outpouring of liquid manure from so many cows. A thousand cows produce as much muck as 50,000 people. There were far more than a thousand cows on each farm.

These lagoons are said to be poorly lined, allowing muck-slurry to seep out, often contaminating ground water. They sometimes overflow, polluting precious waterways in this arid State.

I also visited a local school surrounded by mega-dairies; five within a three-mile radius. Between 3,000 and 6,000 cows on each; that’s 30-60 times more cows than the average dairy farm in Britain.

The march of the mega-dairies is the target of fierce opposition. Residents and public health experts concerned about farm dust and gas emissions and how they affect people. Fishermen, environmentalists and local communities worried about water pollution and what it does to wildlife and drinking water. I also spoke to farmers. As the dairies get bigger, more and more farmers lose their livelihoods.

I scanned the shelves of cheese in the factory shop. I tried some. It was fairly tasteless and rubbery. The visitor centre painted a picture of how cows are kept. It was unrecognisable from the reality of the mega-dairies just along the street. Where cows never see grass and are pushed to produce so much milk that they quickly become worn out. A poster at the nearby auction mart showed photos of happy-looking cows beside the words of a Beach Boys song; “I wish they all could be California girls”. I couldn’t help thinking that the cows would disagree.

It’s easy to feel hopeless when faced with what seems like an onslaught. It’s also inspiring to connect with the growing movement for change, both here in the USA and in Europe.

We should remember what we’ve already achieved. Extreme confinement crates for dairy veal calves – banned in Europe; the use of the GM milk-boosting hormone, BST – banned in Europe; and the 8,000 cow mega-dairy proposal in Nocton, England – ripped up at the planning stage.

We are making a difference. And by joining hands with the mega-dairy protest movement in the USA, we can do so much more.

Following our success in stopping the proposed mega-dairy at Nocton, Lincolnshire which had a starting herd of 3,700 increasing later to 8,000, I am absolutely dismayed by Powys County Council’s decision to allow a 1,000 cow mega-dairy at Leighton near Welshpool.

It’s extremely sad, not only for the cows involved, but also for the beautiful Welsh countryside. According to reports, the mega-dairy will be on land overlooking Powis Castle in the Severn Valley.

Cows belong in fields. Not industrial factory farms. They can live up to 20 years or more. But high yielding dairy cows typically live for just six years. Many suffer with chronic lameness, mastitis or infertility.

Cows kept outside generally have more opportunity to behave naturally; including grazing on pasture, walking freely and breathing fresh air. Cows kept indoors are more restrained. They are kept in forced ventilation. They often stand on hard concrete. They are fed a diet with more concentrate in it which often leads to digestive problems.

To learn more about the welfare of cattle and mega-dairies, please visit our website.

Because cows belong in fields and not in mega-dairies, Compassion believes the Powys dairy is nothing short of a backward step; not only for dairy cow welfare, but for dairy farmers too.

Britain’s dairy farming remains a largely pasture-based business. There is no need for it to follow the US mega-dairy route. I believe that farming and food industry interests must work together with government and consumer groups to ensure Britain’s dairy industry continues to use more humane, economic and sustainable principles. A dairy ‘arms race’ which pushes cows ever harder in pursuit of lower costs is a bad route for cow welfare and a road to nowhere for the future of dairy farming.

We will continue our campaign to keep dairy cows in fields. And will continue to oppose applications for mega-dairies. I’m pleased to say that we recently opposed a mega-dairy in Carmarthen which it was feared locally could expand to as many as 3,000 zero-grazed cows. This application was withdrawn.

To learn more about our campaign against mega-dairies and all forms of factory farming, please visit our new campaign Filthy Business.

Los Angeles: Wide awake with jetlag, I’m here in California at a conference preparing to speak on how to achieve better lives for farm animals. I will be meeting with foundations who generously support the work of like-minded organisations. I will talk to them about the reforms we’ve achieved for farm animals in Europe. And why there is still so much to do to end factory farming in Europe, the USA and throughout the world.

After the conference, I’ll be heading out to continue researching material for my forthcoming book. This will include visiting the almond groves where millions of bees are used to pollinate the trees. I’ve written before here about how the bees are exploited; highlighting this as yet another example of how industrial agriculture simply isn’t sustainable; and how factory farming of both animals and crops often go hand-in-hand.

I’m then going to Mexico to talk to people there about the problems of living with factory farming. It’s important for me to travel to meet with key players and see for myself farming practices throughout the world.

I wouldn’t be able to make these trips without Compassion’s staff who I know I can rely upon. I thank them and you for all your support.

Philip with Huckle, the latest addition to the family

I’m watching the latest addition to our family; a small, featherless hen fresh from her battery cage. Her entire life has been spent crammed with others into a cage where she could not even stretch her wings, let alone walk, flap, scratch at the ground. In short, she was denied being able to do the things that make life worth living for a hen. Just hours away from that wretched existence and her weakened body responds to the warmth of the sun. She walks the length and breadth of our garden. She scratches at the ground and pecks inquisitively at a world previously denied her.

I was recently asked how I feel about the European ban on barren battery cages, due to come into force on New Year’s Day. Put simply, it is perhaps the most monumental victory in the history of animal welfare. It is a huge success story won by the persistence of so many.

After all, it takes a lot to get something banned. Especially when that something dominates an entire industry. Churning out a staple product – eggs – for much of Europe. Yet, we did it. By waving banners, writing letters, buying better eggs. By coming together.

I remember the day the agreement was reached; in June 1999. Animal campaigners throughout Europe had gathered in Luxembourg. We eagerly awaited the outcome of EU negotiations on the future of cages. I will never forget the overwhelming sense of elation at hearing that barren cages would be banned! Standing on the steps of the European Council building, nervously hanging on to every word, as the UK Minister explained what had been agreed. An enduring feeling of privilege at being there on the day that history was made. An end in sight to the nightmare of the battery. The beginning of a better way.

It’s not a perfect law. Sadly, they rarely are. There was the painfully long “phase in” period of 12 long years for example. And then there was the clause that will allow so-called ‘enriched’ cages; bigger with a perch and stuff.

But so many more hens will be living lives of freedom. The rise of keeping hens free range, particularly in the UK, has been obvious.

And then there is the corporate trend. Some of the world’s biggest companies have recently decided to go cage-free on their eggs. McDonald’s in Europe, Sainsbury’s and Unilever to name but three. They have harnessed the food quality benefits of going cage-free; and responded to their customer’s aspirations for a better world on their plate. Millions of hens are living cage-free lives already as a result.

Back at home, our new hen nestles into a bed of straw. It’s the first time she has ever made a nest. She lays an egg. I can see the difference made to the life of this one sensitive creature. How wondrous then that, from 1st January next year, the tireless efforts of compassionate people everywhere will have touched the lives of so many millions more.

I cannot thank you enough; for being part of this campaign, for your support. Together, we are making a difference. There is still much more to do.

The birth of a baby is a wonderful thing. The birth of the seven billionth person alive will be a huge milestone. It both represents the success of our species and throws up the question of our very future on this planet.

Feeding people has always been important. It will be even more so with billions of extra mouths to feed in the coming years.

The truth is that we’re already doing a bad job of it. A billion people are hungry and another billion are malnourished. At the same time, a billion people are obese – overweight to the point where their health is endangered. The divide between rich and poor has perhaps never been so stark.

Over the last half century, the Western world has championed industrialised farming; large-scale production of single crops, be it cereals or animals, fueled by copious chemical fertilisers and pesticides. Our farm animals have disappeared from the land only to be grain-fed and reared in industrial sheds. This is how the vast majority of meat and eggs are produced in Europe and the USA – in factory farms. Sadly, it’s a model now exported around the world. And it’s hugely wasteful.

A third or more of the world’s cereal harvest is fed to industrially-raised animals. If the grain fed to farm animals were grown in a single field, it would cover the entire land surface of the European Union.

But worse than that; factory farms are protein factories in reverse – they waste food, rather than make it. On average, it takes 6 tonnes of plant protein such as cereals or soya to produce 1 tonne of animal protein for human consumption. That’s a shameful waste.

And if that food wasn’t diverted to feed factory farms, it could be fed directly to people. Or the land used for something else. As Professor Steve Jones put it in the Daily Telegraph, “A shift in the production of the commonest crops to feed people directly, rather than to use grain to fatten animals, would increase the calories available by half, and more or less solve the joint problems of shortage and glut”.

Whilst the human population is expected to grow by a further 2 billion or more by 2050, the livestock population is forecast to double, and much of it factory farmed.

Encouraging the spread of factory farming is literally putting hungry people in competition for food with factory farmed animals. The resulting increased demand for basic staples then drives up food prices to the detriment of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable. As Oxfam observed, “Increased demand for grains to feed livestock, coupled with the burgeoning demand from biofuels for feedstocks, is likely to push future food prices further beyond the limits of affordability for the world’s poorest people”.

So we need to stop wasting vast amounts of grain, taking it off the international market and out of the mouths of people to feed factory farms. Instead, we should be looking for better, less wasteful ways of producing food. We need a fairer food system that ensures all people get enough to eat. And that farm animals return to the land where they belong to play a more efficient part in our sustainable food future. Your support for change is needed today more than ever. There are now seven billion good reasons to go beyond factory farming.

I defy anyone to watch the latest undercover exposé from Turkey of the transport and slaughter of sheep and cattle and not feel sickened and angry.

Here’s yet more gruesome footage in which unforgivable and inexcusable things are done to farmed animals when they are at their most vulnerable. Please understand that it’s as difficult for me and everyone at Compassion to watch this footage as I am sure it is for you. But please don’t turn away. We owe it to the animals to know how they’re abused in order to speak out on their behalf with authority.

As we saw repeatedly from previous undercover investigations in, for example, Egypt in 2009 and Indonesia this year, sheep, cattle and pigs are repeatedly abused in contravention of the international recommendations of the World Organisation for Animal Health on welfare at slaughter.

We cannot allow these situations to continue. Developments in Turkey are particularly distressing. In the first half of this year almost 600,000 sheep were transported to Turkey from the EU. This is more than twice as many as in the whole of 2010. At least 100,000 cattle were exported from the EU to Turkey in the first half of 2011. This is nearly twice as many as in the whole of 2010. On current trends, we could see more than 1 million animals travel the route this year.

The European Commission has several times been given detailed information about the welfare abuses involved in live exports to Turkey. We have told them how EU law designed to protect animals is regularly broken during these journeys and how protracted delays at the border – lasting hours, sometimes days – intensifies the suffering. Despite this the Commission has failed to take any effective action. If you want to write to the Commission please join us in taking action here.

All of this underscores the importance of keeping up the pressure against the long distance transport trade in animals internationally. Thank you for your continued support.

Today is Blog Action Day. I do hope that many of you have decided to get involved and have written a blog that is in some way related to food.

Of the many food-based topics that I wanted to write about, I eventually hit upon an area that I think many of you would like to talk about further. Here at Compassion in World Farming, we urge people to choose higher welfare meat, whether that be at the supermarket or when you eat out. But the big question on everyone’s minds (and lips), particularly in the current economic environment is: how much will this cost?

My esteemed colleague, Peter Stevenson, wrote a report recently entitled Reviewing the Costs: the economics of moving to higher welfare farming. This is primarily for the farming community, retailers and the government. It is a research paper of sorts, and one that I have found invaluable. Please do take this opportunity to read it, should you be interested in having some more in-depth knowledge on the subject. However, the point remains, what all of us, ‘the consumers’ want to know is: how much will it cost me when I am shopping and is it worth it?

Many of you, like me, will want to feed your family on humane, sustainable, higher welfare food. Is this financially viable?

To cut to the chase: producing a free-range egg costs just a fraction over 2p more than a battery egg. So, switching to free-range eggs should cost 7.5p more per person, per week. While I appreciate that a lot of us are living on extremely tight budgets – the difference that you would be making to a hen by choosing a free-range egg over a battery-cage egg is immense. The financial difference on the other hand, is not vast.

Adding straw and space for pigs costs 5p more per kilo of pork. Therefore, switching to humanely reared pork should cost just 3.3p more per person per week. If you can find it within your budget to make this addition, then you will be helping a pig to live a life free from cruelty.

A final point to touch on, is the environmental cost of producing lower welfare meat and dairy. Now strictly speaking, this isn’t fiscal ‘cost’ as such…but surely we should all be thinking of the expense to our health and to the environment and our planet? Pollution and overuse of water, soil degradation, greenhouse gas emissions, loss of biodiversity and increased levels of disease in humans are all costs. Costs that no amount of money will replace.

Does choosing higher welfare animal produce cost more? Yes, but literally pennies, not pounds. The real question is, can we put a cost on abusing our planet and our own health? Is it worth it?

Give it some thought, and then see if you would be able to dedicate 15 minutes to speaking out for farmed animals online. You are, of course, encouraged also to speak with people personally as well. To help, I want to share with you some ideas for talking points:

• Two out of three farmed animals worldwide are confined in factory farms • 35 billion chickens are raised indoors for their meat • 700 million pigs are confined in over-crowded, barren conditions • Three billion laying hens live in tiny, wire cages • Millions of ducks and geese are mercilessly force-fed to make foie gras

But there is progress to report and inspiration for you to act on:

• More than 20 million laying hens are set to benefit from the policies of European food companies through our Good Egg Award • At least 208 million animals are now set to benefit each year from the higher welfare policies of all our Good Farm Animal Award winners • One in six of the UK local authorities that provide catering commit to using eggs from cage-free hens • In January 2010, Germany bans barren battery cages, which is two years before the 2012 ban is due to come into effect • In February 2010, following our supporter-led campaign, Europe rejects Poland’s proposal to delay the 2012 barren battery cage ban • More than 50 per cent of eggs bought in the UK now come from hens living cage-free lives

If you want even more information about Compassion and our campaigns, please read our award-winning Annual Review 2009/10 and visit our website from which the above talking points were taken.

Please don’t forget if you have a blog, to register your involvement in Blog Action Day 2011.

And because I want us to bring as much attention as we can to farmed animals and the food we eat, please remember to tag your blog and social media updates with the tag #BAD11. This will mean that your blog and updates will be included on the Blog Action Day website.

Let’s speak out with one voice for farmed animals today! Happy blogging everyone!

Hens have the endearing habit of taking themselves off to bed, or ‘roost’ as it is commonly known. It’s a deeply engrained survival instinct; getting up high at night and out of the way of predators. Our four adopted hens, Hetty, Henna, Honey and Hope, have a ladder-like ramp in their coop, which leads to a raised area with plenty of perching space. When dusk sets in, one by one, they will carefully and deliberately climb the ramp with all the concentration of someone elderly negotiating a challenging set of stairs. It’s a behaviour I watched most clearly in a beautiful male Golden Pheasant in Norfolk some years ago; he cautiously climbed a bushy tree to roost, carefully negotiating each successful level until high enough to feel safe. With eyes set more to the side of their heads, rather than forward looking as in humans, and unaided by artificial light, the caution of birds ungainly in flight seems well placed.

Hetty would more often than not try roosting in the nest; a deep straw-lined compartment on the upper level of the coop adjacent to the roosting perch. This wasn’t something we wanted to encourage for fear of a fouled nest come daybreak. Consistent coaching has trained her that the perch is where she should rather be. In winter, it helps having them together so that they can benefit from their combined body heat.

When the new day dawns, our flock has a loosely identifiable routine; when released from the safety of their coop – all important protection at night from the foxes that now seem to camp out in the street – they run and flap, sometimes half flying, toward the ‘plain’, a flat raised area that used to be a flower bed. Here, they’ll scratch and peck; picking up scraps left for the wild birds, as well as spilt sunflower seeds, pieces of fat flung by squabbling Starlings, and any natural bounty they can uncover.

Next, they’ll explore under the thick cover of the Rhododendron scrub; their favourite haunt when it rains, as the broad leaves shelter the busy hens beneath them. They’ll then move to what we call ‘The Avenue’; a tunnel formed of arched hawthorns and viburnum. Log-stump stepping stones were once surrounded by bluebells here. When the hens arrived, the bluebells quickly disappeared. Now, they are criss-crossed by sprawling ivy and are often hid by soil and sediment scattered by enquiring hens’ feet.

Once the garden is scoured, it’s often time to dustbathe. Favourite venues for this essential activity are the half barrel that houses a splendid Bhutan pine; the other a wooden rectangular planter on the patio filled with soft compost and threatened plants. The hens will settle down into the soil or compost where they will lie on one side and use jerky, ecstatic shuffles to flick the ‘dust’ between their feathers. The purpose of this ritual is to help maintain their feathers in tip-top condition. Unlike human hair that continually grows, a bird’s feathers are replaced by a process of moulting, which usually takes place but once a year. Worn or damaged feathers are not usually replaced until the moult. Looking after them is therefore an important preoccupation for any bird.

Sunny days will often see the hens lying on their side in the sun, stretching a wing and taking on an ecstatically crazed expression with eyes bulging. I have watched Robins and Blackbirds too, sunbathing during lazy summer days. Watching it reminds me of a study visit I undertook to a new and innovative commercial hen-farm in the Netherlands. The system is designed to achieve high standards of bird welfare by encouraging natural behaviours, including dustbathing and sunbathing. Indeed, during the visit I saw quite a few sunbathing hens in this chicken city which housed 30,000 birds. I remember being somewhat surprised when our host told us that animal behaviour scientists had been out to evaluate this new housing system and that they hadn’t seen sunbathing hens before! They needed to go away and look up a reference for what they were observing! It made me think how far removed we’ve come from understanding basic animal behaviours, much as a result of farming’s quest for greater productivity and intensity. It also convinced me that anyone working in the field of animal science or animal welfare as an expert would most likely benefit from living and caring for hens. It would surely be a valuable real world complement to any long academic study. It would enable them to see the birds behaving in their more natural environment, rather than simply seeing the limited and institutionalised version so common on commercial farms.