Ahimsa response to TBIJ article
Introduction
On 19th December 2024 the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) published an article1 about the Ahimsa Dairy Foundation (ADF) that included upsetting photos of injured animals and allegations of poor animal welfare and underpaid workers.
Whilst the nature of the allegations is serious, I feel the article was inaccurate, misleading and lacked essential context. I hope that my response below will addresses some of that. To really do justice and be able to understand who and what we are truly about, I had invited the journalist, Emiliano Mellino to come and see for himself what we are really doing. We have got nothing to hide. He declined to meet our cows and cowherds and did not investigate matters in person. The article was written in an office in central London
Sanjay Tanna (Sita Rama das)
Director of Ahimsa Dairy Foundation
Background
To produce milk with absolutely no slaughter of any cows, both boys and girls, young and old has been a sharp learning curve and we have made many mistakes and learnt many lessons in the last fourteen years since we produced our first bottle of milk. So, whilst we have parted company with the Turners of Bytham (John and brother Guy), Yamuna Soto and Shane Gilliland due to a dispute on welfare standards, I am still very appreciative and thankful to them for their contribution to our journey.
There are naturally many challenges in working with animals with horns and in caring for cows at the end of their life. We are still trying to navigate through sensitive and emotional areas such as euthanasia and care for sick and dying cows. For that reason, we have been in direct touch with government vets.
Upon a request from Max Hardy of Rutland Vets for some protocols for our animals in November 2023, we set about creating an End of Life Policy2 with the help of Dr Sean Butler3 at Cambridge University and some of his students. Subsequently, we have had several other cows pass away over the last year. One was euthanised and three passed away naturally. We have worked closely with our vets each time and they were very happy with our collaboration.
Naturally, some people may be concerned about our welfare standards, and below I acknowledge we have a number of improvements to make. However, in our 14 years of operation, we have not sent one animal to slaughter. We believe every animal has a right to life and we distinguish between animal welfare and animal rights. Most dairy farms will not need to face the challenges of sickness and old age for their cattle as slaughter and euthanasia are cheap and easy options.
Pictures are powerful so I first address the photographs used in this article.
Pictures 1 & 2: “Horned animals bloody and scar each other due to being kept too close”
The picture of the cow with the bloody horn was taken on June 26th 2024 after Lilac got excited and tried to play fight with Cocoa in an open field, not in an enclosed barn (i.e. not because they were kept close together). Unfortunately, Cocoa doesn’t like to play and they locked horns. It was impossible for us to intervene and Lilac came away wounded. The injury was mostly healed by 4th July. Cows are hierarchical and these things unfortunately can happen.
The second picture of the gored cow was Carlo. He was in the barn when this happened in the Winter of 2023. He recovered fully soon after. All cattle are treated promptly when injuries occur. Both horned and polled (not horned) cows fight for different reasons. E.g. feed, not following the appropriate cow etiquette (e.g. walking in front of a more senior cow), being on heat etc. We have learned that making good quality feed more available has helped and we have sometimes had to separate cows that are less compatible with each other.
Picture 3: “Cattle standing in a barn covered in manure”
There are two methods employed by ADF for the bedding of their cattle, both common practice in dairy farming. The first method involves picking out dung from the straw, adding a little extra straw and levelling it out. When there are a larger number of cows in the pen, the deep bedding method is employed where an extra layer of straw is just added to the top to provide a clean layer to rest on. In both cases, bedding is sorted twice a day around milking time. In the picture circulated of a cow ankle deep in the bedding, the area around the feed face is more prone to being churned by the cows’ hooves. This picture would have been taken just before a layer of straw was added to the top. It can be noted that the cows in the picture are clean, so the clean side of the pen where they would have been lying down is out of the frame on the left. We agree more straw could have been used in this instance, but the cows were not at risk.
It is also worth highlighting that we are required by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) to regularly send-off milk samples to be tested (two a month). Over the last three years, there have been no fails at all, only Passes. If there was a failure, we would not be able to sell raw milk.
Picture 4: “Cows grazing on mouldy feed”
In early 2023, mistakes were made by ADF whereby the winter feed was not ordered in time. By June, it was difficult to secure the quantity of feed required for the coming Winter. Some feed acquired was mouldy and when it was put out, the directors instructed it be removed. This feed was used in error a second time and the employee was disciplined.
Picture 5: “A cow that collapsed on the farm and eventually died”
This caption implies that the cow in the photo was neglected and eventually died due to neglect.
The cow is actually a young ox called Jagannath. The Turners helped us move Jagannath to a closer, more sheltered spot near the main barns. Vets had been called and were unable to ascertain his exact condition as he would get up and then go down. Throughout this period he was under veterinary surveillance and continuous care by the Ahimsa team. This condition continued for a period of a month before it came to the point where he was suffering so much that our vet asked him to be euthanised because no pain relief medication was working. Our vet bills were over £3000 for his extended care.
ADF, Vets and Euthanasia
We have had an ongoing relationship with Government (APHA) vets in relation to the Hindu Protocol for protected animals since June 2022 when a cow called Red October was put down due to an injury after child birth. Whenever there is a question of how an animal is handled at end of life or if there is a disagreement between a vet and Ahimsa over a cow, government vets can be called upon – as was the case in Nov ’23 when our ox, Dunstan died.
When Dunstan sustained an injury and was down, a couple of the team wanted to call vets immediately, whereas others were reluctant due to previous negative experiences with Red October. Metacam was being administered by the team for pain relief and within 48 hours the vets were called. On arrival, the vets also administered Metacam and suggested euthanasia would be required but provided no other advice. At that time we requested the use of stronger than normal pain relief medication as our ox was not going to enter the food chain. The Government vets permitted our local vets to do this. The following day, vets administered stronger pain relief and Dunstan passed away as a result. This matter was later reviewed by another manager. As a consequence, the following comments were shared with the Turners and employees involved in January 2024:
“there was an emotional bias in the decision-making process. ADF is still relatively young with a limited number of end-of-life scenarios it has had to manoeuvre through and it was not clear, even after the first vet visits, what options were on the table. The initial vet visit only resulted in a prescription of Metacam which was already being administered, and no advice on moving the animal was provided. So, the initial vet consultation did not provide significant insights that would have changed anything. However, earlier consultation could have resulted in discussions on the stronger medication to take place earlier and thus result in less suffering.
Recommendations:
Sita Rama has already made substantial progress in putting together a detailed end of life protocol that includes a prompter vet consultation with an ethos to ensure the best pain relief and advice is given as early as possible.”
In August 2024 another young ox called Jagannath went down unexpectedly as mentioned above (picture 5). The following text was shared by one of the directors to the team in-line with the new protocol:
“I’ve spoken to the vet and explained our wishes are to provide pain relief, twice a day if required, and if the vet decides that this is insufficient/impractical/not right and they have to euthanize, then that is their choice and we will not stop them. The vet has agreed to give a higher dose of pain relief and revisit at 6pm to check and give a dose to see him through the night. They will then visit again in the morning.”
In December 2024, an older cow also passed away. Padma, was a one-eyed cow from birth who in any other dairy, would not have been allowed to have a life. She was struggling to walk and was first visited by a vet in September 2024. She spent much of her last few months down and eventually passed away peacefully. Again, most dairy farms would not have given her the care and opportunity to die naturally. The final texts between our herd manager and the vets were as follows:
Herd Manager: Hi Max, just to let you know, Padma passed away Saturday morning. How she held on this long is beyond me. Her issues made it s tad complex nursing her but for the most part, we managed to keep her comfortable right to the end. I barely needed to use pain relief and she left quite peacefully. It just goes to show, every time is not always the same. Thank you to you and your team again for being there when needed.
Vet: Sorry to hear that … amazing how long she lasted but glad she went peacefully and you can all be proud of efforts to keep her comfortable.
It is also worth mentioning that we regularly have student vets stay with us on site for one or two weeks at a time to learn about what we do and how we operate.
Our Journey with the Turners
Ahimsa was initially invited by John Turner to join him on his farm in Little Bytham on 16th October 2020. The partnership was convivial for a number of years with Ahimsa investing tens of thousands of pounds in infrastructure on the Turners land such as a refrigerated cheese room, groundwork for a capstan that would eventually help with milling and upgrades to fencing. We held open days and ran “Conscious Collective” events onsite with the Turners being key speakers. The following article came out in 2023 describing the successful and promising partnership;
https://www.flipsnack.com/98DB88DD75E/a-farm-without-harm-by-richard-mcilwain/full-view.html
When an opportunity arose to purchase a building in the same village in April of 2023, Ahimsa discussed the prospect with the Turners. It was a big commitment. Are we going to be here long term? We were reassured and purchased the Willoughby Arms for just under £1m (with the help of a wealthy benefactor). It was going to be a bed and breakfast, with a bakery utilising grain grown and milled by our oxen. Thanks to the Burghley Horse trials, we took over £2000 in our first week.
Note, no major concerns or complaints had been highlighted in these first few years, despite the heavy footfall of visitors, guests, workers and inspectors passing through. The Soil Association, Food Standards Agency, Local Environmental Health regularly visited the farm. We received no warnings from any organisations for any malpractice whatsoever. In fact, we had our local vets and Government vets visit often. We received no complaints. Only on one occasion did a vet make a recommendation that when one of our oxen had fallen, he be moved to one corner and a protected area created around him. We complied.
Underpaid workers
Sita Rama secured a grant for training oxen in 2022. This grant would continue for two years after which the new ox programme would have to sustain itself. The grant was for one ox-worker, an expert ox-trainer and buying suitable equipment for ox work. An expert trainer was identified with 20 years of working with oxen. The search for an ox worker resulted in identifying Yamuna Soto and Shane Gilliland as potentials as they had plenty of experience working with ponies. Sita Rama considered Yamuna as family having known her family for decades and partially facilitated their relocation. The Turners agreed for them to stay on their land at no cost. Email exchanges show that Yamuna and Shane wished to split the salary and share the job (“one job shared by two people”). It was only a year later when a dispute arose did Sita Rama realise his naivety in not setting proper contracts. Ahimsa thus settled £20,000. An expensive lesson learnt.
Machine milking while promoting hand milking
From 2015 to 2018, Ahimsa would only milk its cows by hand. However, after the departure of a couple of herdsmen, leaving only one person to milk we conceded to a milk machine. Over subsequent years, we had a mix of hand milking and machine milking. We currently hand milk two out of ten cows. We have begun the process of changing our labels on bottles as well as anywhere else it is mentioned. A new proof from the printers was received on 10th December omitting ‘hand milked’. Our transition has already begun and website shall be amended shortly. Once we have enough herdsmen, we will go back to fully hand milking.
Concluding words
Despite the way things have ended with the Turners, Yamuna and Shane, we are grateful for the things we have learned from them. They are very capable and intelligent and we wish them all success in their farming endeavours.
ADF will continue to promote the right to life and pursue high welfare for our cows. If our supporters and customers have any doubts, we would urge them to visit and speak to us.