Each day we find little moments of joy in sips of tea, scoops of ice-cream, or in a bite of our favorite mithai, but little do we know about their source. Could these fleeting joyous moments mean only pain and suffering to somebody? In a country like India where vegetarianism is widely known and practiced, many relate meat with cruelty and killing. Did you know that there are people who don't consume milk at all and their numbers are increasing. Now you would wonder why? because animals are not killed for milk? Well, you may think that way but the reality is far from it. Let's meet the real source of milk- Dairy Animals.
Animal Equality conducted an investigation covering small, medium and large dairies across the different states of the entire country. The facts presented here are standard practices in all kinds of dairies in villages and cities.
Cows and buffalos are intelligent and sentient animals. Every animal has a distinct personality. Just like us, they feel various emotions like love, fear, pain and joy. Advertisers make us falsely believe that dairy animals live happily with their babies and we just take a portion of their milk. But the reality is no way closer to this, they are abused, their babies are taken away from them and they are made to go through a never-ending cycle of cruelty.
Dairy, meat and leather industry are interdependent. The dairy industry churns out a large number of unproductive animals for slaughter every day, which in turn helps the meat and leather trade thrive. When an animal is sold to the butcher the value of both the meat as well as the hide (skin) is taken into consideration.
Animal Equality conducted an investigation covering small, medium and large dairies across the different states of the entire country. The facts presented here are standard practices in all kinds of dairies in villages and cities.
There is no such thing as beef cattle in India as in other countries where cattle are specifically raised for beef. Therefore dairy, meat and leather industry are interdependent. As per the United States Department of Agriculture's report , there were 327,300,000 dairy animals in India in 2013. The dairy industry provides large number of unproductive animals for slaughter everyday. For e.g. in 2013 42,100,000 cattle were slaughtered in India. Through this report we've documented how the meat and leather industry is heavily dependent on the dairy industry for its supply.
In total 107 dairy farms, 2 semen collection centres, 11 cattle markets, 8 slaughterhouses, 7 meat markets and 5 tanneries, situated in different parts of the country were documented by Animal Equality. The dairy animals which were documented were buffaloes and cattle.