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The organic advocate group The Soil Association says Organic Farming adopts a practical model for producing climate friendly food.

“This is because it is less dependent on oil-based fertilizers and pesticides and confers resilience in the face of climatic extremes. It also stores higher levels of carbon in the soil, and as a result if organic farming was common practise in the UK, we could offset at least 23% of agriculture’s greenhouse emissions.”

Using all organic products, a small UK company is paving the way for small businesses to not only come back, but succeed.

In these unstable economic times,  this small company “What on Earth” appears to be flourishing.

Company Co-Founder and sales director Jeremy Jaffe puts the success down to the fact that the firm supplies smaller independent stores, rather than large, chain supermarkets.

The small London based company reports a very successful year, with an almost 50% increase in revenue from just below 3 million to 5 million last year.

Indeed, in 2011 it delivered more than half a million organic-based products to it’s customers. All organic, the company began 13 years ago with a humble organic pizza.

It has grown, grounded by an ethical and environmentally concious culture.

In the workplace, company director Jaffe says “We have very simple principles and always look for the simplest and most uncomplicated options-and they are often the best and most ethically-minded.”

In these sad days of Mega Dairies, Factory Farms and massive super-scale supermarkets, who complain bitterly of financial losses, this small, independent ethically minded company is a breath of fresh air.

Let us hope that this bodes well for the future.

Smaller, ethically and environmentally minded companies can exist alongside the giants. In fact it seems, they can thrive!

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Press Release

4th December 2011

The Ahimsa Dairy Foundation launches cow and calf sponsorship scheme

The Ahimsa Dairy Foundation (ADF), which supplies entirely slaughter-free milk from its herd of organic cows in Kent, has now launched a sponsorship scheme for people to help support its cows and calves.

The Ahimsa herd are mostly named after Indian or English flowers and supporters can currently choose one of nine cows, or three calves to sponsor – although with several new calves on the way that figure will soon change.

The cost of the herd’s retirement plan is built into the price of the milk, but the not-for-profit company wants to ensure it has a little aside to ensure their future as well as moving cows to their sanctuary and training young bulls. The company also want to involve supporters with the daily lives of the herd.

Sponsorship starts from £3, £5 or £10 a month and for this people will receive regular updates about their cow or calf and the Ahimsa Dairy project, which is dedicated to sustainable and ethical farming.

Singer and advocate for animal welfare Chrisse Hynde said of the Ahimsa Slaughter-free Milk project: “Most animal rights minded vegans share the opinion that cows’ milk is only for the consumption of calves and of course, when buying milk from the meat/dairy industry, no milk is cruelty free. However, if cows are treated according to the high ethical principles of cow protection, as in the Vedic tradition of ancient Indian culture, where no cows are slaughtered, their milk provides unlimited benefits for human health and I am delighted to support Ahimsa Milk and welcome this latest initiative."

ADF Director, Sanjay Tanna said : “ We were looking for ways to involve our supporters more deeply with the lives of our herd and the challenges of bringing slaughter-free milk to the breakfast table. We very much hope people will be keen to sponsor our cows and bulls and help us secure their future and expand our project.”

Notes to Editors

• Ahimsa Slaughter-free Milk comes from a farm in Kent. It is available in the London and Hertfordshire areas for £2.25 a litre with a 15p charge for doorstep delivery. In some areas it can be collected from drop-off points. Please see the website for details
• For sponsorship details go to the website at: http://www.ahimsamilk.org/sponsor-a-cow/
• For more information, contact 07723 354 527
  

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In a recent National Geographic article, Charles Mann announced:   ”Soil degradation is putting the future of the global population at risk.”

Civil unrest in Latin America, Asia and Africa have now been attributed to a lack of food and/or affordable food, as a result of poor soil.

In other countries such as Australia, and the nations of Africa on the southern edge of the Sahara, cattle grazing and feed-crop production on marginal lands; contribute substancially to desertification. Basically we’re adding chemicals to soil to mass produce feed for meat animals, and systematically killing the soil for future generations.

“Overgrazing and the intensive production of feed grain for cattle, and other meat animals results in high levels of soil erosion” according to Alan B. Durning of the World Watch Institute 1986.

So I’ve just said it, Alan Durning was saying it in 1986 and many other people have warned us since. Why does it feel that no one is listening? Perhaps we’re not speaking loud enough. Perhaps we’re being drowned out by the noise of the latest “must have” electronic gizmo or advertisements for “stuff” and recipes that more often than not, include meat to stuff ourselves with.

Right now the ads are everywhere for Turkey orders for the upcoming xmas holidays. These poor birds, days numbered are painfully hobbling about packed, often filthy holding cells. They limp on broken legs, because they’ve been bred to be plump and “juicy” and their spindly legs simply cannot support the weight needed for the dinner table. The grain they’re fed cripples not only these sad birds, but the future of our planet.

By 2030, the Earth’s population will reach 8.3 billion. But in what will we be growing food?

Over the past few centuries, mainly due to meat production, the USA has lost about 2/3 of it’s topsoil. And they consider themselves a super power? What of the rest of the world?

I wonder how many people would enjoy tucking into their Sunday roast beef quite as much, if a tag came with it announcing:

“One pound of beef from cattle raised on feedlots, represents the loss of 35lbs worth of topsoil. But hey, it’s traditional right, don’t worry about it. Enjoy!”

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       ”Viral Storm: the dawn of a new Pandemic Age.”  written by Nathan Wolfe is a true wakeup call.

Little do many of us realise that our modern way of living with it’s emphasis on factory farming, constant long-distance travel and over-used antibiotics, is creating a powder keg of destruction for our future.

The new movie “Contagion” starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Kate Winslett is actually loosely based on the research in Nathan’s book.  Modern life has certainly made us more, not less vulnerable to a global pandemic.

Wolfe recounts the story of the first “bird flu” in 2003. A young boy brings home a sick chicken and dies 11 days later, drowning in his own fluids, beginning a global pandemic of epic proportions. Transmission of animal to human microbes, is the source of most global pandemics.

Although in his role as “Director of Global Forecasting” Wolfe goes all over the world hunting possible contagions; however despite that he says factory farms are actually a closer, more dangerous threat.

Since 2000 global meat production has risen by 20%. Using massive doses of antibiotics diseases to livestock have lessened, but new, more deadly viruses have emerged such as bird-flu, foot and mouth, and mad cow disease. Worldwatch state that, “cramped filthy conditions, in factory farms contribute to antibiotic resistance, making it more difficult to treat human as well as animal diseases.” Terrifyingly 80% of all antibiotics used, in 2009 were administered to animals, leaving just 20% to humans.

Industrial killing farms for meat animals contain over one billion cattle, one billion pigs and shockingly 20 billion chickens at any one time. Is it really a surprise that these factory farms have been described, by experts in their fields as “incubators” for infectious agents that can easily move to human populations, causing a deadly pandemic at any given time.

Perhaps a pandemic of global proportions has to be the only way humans come to their senses and stop slaughtering sentient beings for food? If that is the case, then we as a sentient species are certainly not as intelligent and superior as we believe.

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Surely until we know all the ramifications of ingesting genetically modified food we need to slow down our experimentation, especially when it comes to adding human DNA to animals. The latest “great idea” comes from China where apparently scientists have added human DNA to cattle embryos to create a herd producing milk which is deemed to be 80% human breast milk.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/chinese-cows-produce-quothuman-breast-milkquot-22981.html

Manufacturers have been trying to produce the correct “formula” for a replacement human breast milk for decades. As soon as they think they’ve come close, another mineral is dicovered in real breast milk, and they’re back to square one.

Surely in China where the “one child permitted per household” rule is enforced, the parents could be prevailed upon to feed their one and only child nature’s best formula for human babies, human breast milk? Of course some mothers have genuine difficulty breast feeding, but many just don’t bother. Educational programmes and real support for new mothers, to encourage breast feeding would be a better use of funding surely, than yet another “pseudo-replacement.”

And what of the effect on the cows themselves, having their DNA tampered with?

What happened the other times man decided to go against nature? For example the wonderful idea someone had to feed cattle due to be slaughtered, with the brains of dead sheep. That worked out well for the cattle and people who later ate the cattle. They all developed BSG and had their brains literally liquify.

What is wrong with feeding our children our milk for as long as we’re able and then allowing mother nature to provide delicious, slaughter-free cow’s milk from our happy healthy cows in the Ahimsa herd?

For those of us who enjoy dairy produce, this hopefully is our future.

(Cow featured here, is one of our own Ahimsa cows, peacefully grazing in Kent.)

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News that cows have best friends comes as no surprise to those of us who have worked with them (what to speak of their mood swings!)

Check out this article in the guardian:  “Cows have best friends”

Who would think that beneath that calm exterior there is a boiling mass of emotions? I’m not talking about Wimbledon champions here, but cows. Yes, cows; those creatures that we eat, and take milk from, but rarely think about. According to new research by scientists at Northampton University, cows have “best friends” and get stressed when separated.

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