Guest contributor Marloes Boere was raised on a small dairy farm in the Netherlands.
“I grew up on a dairy farm. It’s the reason I’m vegan today. Just the other day, my father told me that one of the cows died because she refused to eat after her baby was taken away from her. This broke my heart.
For cows to produce milk at profitable levels, they need to have a baby every year. After birth, their calf is taken away from them within a couple of hours. The calf is put into a pen, where he is all alone, fed only twice a day. This practice causes a lot of emotional pain both for the mother and her calf.
As a child, I have witnessed the cruel separation of mother and calf over and over again, and was told that it was normal and necessary. This couldn’t be further from the truth. I am horrified that we live in a world that teaches children it is acceptable to invade and exploit motherhood in such a violent way. No one should support this. Mother’s milk is baby food and cow’s milk is for baby cows.”
