This week I've been reading The Human Stain, and I'd like to thank Philip Roth for reminding us exactly how similar women and cattle really are:
The creamy-colored cows...for whom chomping at one extremity from a fodder-filled trough while being sucked dry at the other by not one or two or three but four pulsating untiring mechanical mouths - for whom sensual stimulus was their voluptuous due. Each of them deep into an experience blissfilly lacking in spiritual depth: to squirt and to chew, to crap and to piss, to graze and to sleep... the aura they exuded of an opulent, earthy oneness with female abundance...
Yeah, Philip, I know where they're coming from. But cool as these sisters are, they're not as right-on as Liz Jones's heifers. Jones, a self-castigating Daily Mail columnist who I'm pretty fond of, has started selling dairy products whilst under the impression that she is actually working for the animals, or at least that they have formed a vocal trade union. I'm a bit of a fan of animal rights but even I don't believe that a cow is entitled to an 'income' and a 'pension'.
Jones is equally in touch with other members of the farmyard community: "Our eggs will be from hens that can fund their retirement by selling us their eggs." Well done Liz. No one's going to think you're an idiot after that little gem.
Obviously, a cow is not an entrepreneur. If we are going to use milk there is no point pretending that it isn't exploitation; what is at steak (HA! HA!) is how cruel the exploitation will be.
Jones and her business partner's new brand, Cow Nation, will produce small quantities of high-price organic whole-milk. What it won't do is slaughter the calves that cows are made to produce regularly so they will lactate, or feed cows damaging growth hormones that cause mastitis and birth-defects. Also apparently the milk will be creamy and delicious, just like it was in the olden days blah blah blah.
Given the increasing popularity of zero-grazing dairy farms in the UK, in which cows are kept indoors or undergound in battery conditions, Jones's enterprise seems timely. Cow Nation is not a realistic solution to the problems of large scale food production but it's a good thing to raise awareness about the ethics of dairy farming, and encourage people to buy Soil Association certified milk in the same way that many buy free-range eggs. This should be a curb on zero-grazing practices.
In general, though, the dairy industry is horrible. Drinking milk may seem wimpy but it's tied up with the slaughter of cows in infancy or, if female, after about 1/6th of their natural life-span, by which time their bodies are crippled and depleted from drugs and overmilking. Life parts from Philip Roth's fantasy of placid superabundance: female milk, like female patience, can run out.
