Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2009
PETA says cows still aren't happy
Animal rights group renews effort to show milk promotion misleads
By John Holland jholland@modbee.com
An animal rights group Tuesday renewed its campaign against the "happy cows" promotions by the California Milk Advisory Board.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, in a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission, claimed the Modesto-based board misleads consumers by depicting cows in lush pastures.
The group said the cows live mostly in manure-filled dirt lots and suffer udder infections because of a lack of veterinary care.
"If the CMAB is to be believed, cows in the dairy industry are free to kick up their heels in rolling green fields with a handful of their peers," said Tracy Reiman, executive vice president of the Virginia-based group, in a news release.
"The truth is that conditions commonly found on California's factory dairy farms have been scientifically proven to cause cows extreme physical pain and mental distress." Read More
For the second time, PETA is attempting to shut down the California Milk Board’s “Happy Cows” advertisements. It’s a very lame attempt, but that won’t slow down PETA. However, if they don’t succeed again with this argument, be prepared for the next complaint over the ads to focus on the fact that CA’s dairy farmers are misleading the public into believing that cows can talk. ~TH
1 comment:
As despicable as PETA is, there are some in the dairy and agriculture industry who have real concerns that the "Happy Cow" ads need to be replaced, not because they misrepresent the realities of the dairy industry, which the ads do for the most part, but because they are ineffective at doing what they purport to do: sell more milk.
Dairy farmers have done an abysmally poor job of marketing their product and promoting their industry, and the CMAB, California's milk marketing arm, needs to junk the Happy Cow ads for something completely different to promote the industry and help their members sell more milk.
While dairy farmers complain at industry conferences that too few people are consuming their products, causing milk prices to plummet (I've heard and reported on these complaints in many different forums), dairymen continue to produce more milk from their cows with no real effort to bring supply and demand into balance.
PETA can't and won't be pacified; that's not the issue. The issue is how the dairy industry can change its message to increase demand for their products and sell more milk.
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