Nocton and the industrial cows
Friday 18th February, weather same as it was 10 minutes ago only the sun is burning more strongly through the mist. Compassion in World Farming reports that Nocton Dairies has withdrawn its plans for the first industrial "dairy farm" in the UK, in the face of determined popular opposition both national and local. But Compassion in World Farming warns that Nocton hasn't given up. They're keeping the land, on Nocton Heath Lincolnshire, and they haven't withdrawn their planning applications for the slurry reservoir and pipeline required. They have not accepted the validity of the objections raised against their plan & the message seems to be that they'll be back.This may seem like a storm in a teacup, from a global perspective. Why shouldn't Holsteins, bred and fed solely for milk production, be treated callously and packed in impoverished conditions? One has to be hard headed about farm animals. On the other hand, in other parts of the world prosperous people have what seems to me, here in this small country, a shocking tolerance (especially dairy and meat eaters, of whom I am one) for eating horribly dirty food. It was the same in the last industrial revolution, until protest and pressure turned things around. Why not be even-handed. We're good at that. We can always see a case for moral relativism these days, so why should cows take all the stick? Along with CiWF, I feel there's a case for being hard-headed about the real bad guys in all this, the ruthless profiteering drivers of this new industrial revolution, I mean the giant supermarkets.
I don't like violent revolution, because it doesn't have a great track record (and indeed, in the Bold As Love sequence it's the Extreme Right Wing, with occult connections and a genocidal plan, that finally "benefits" from the violence that overtakes the joyous young demonstrators of Dissolution Year). But I look back with pride at the targets I got right: Ax Preston co-opts the military and the police to his cause, while torching Asda, Tesco Sainsburys etc, on a massive scale. But I'm glad I didn't forget the reverse of the medal: as these Bastilles are stormed, and agribusiness collapses in their wake, Sage Pender is dragging starved mega-farm dairy cows into burial pits. How hard it is to right a wrong by violence!
