The dairy industry is set to use its only compelling weapon – its wealth – to counter the damning information about the milk industry increasingly circulated by vegan activists and now even mainstream media.
A whopping £1.2 million will be spent on a marketing campaign, led by Dairy UK and the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB).
And it’s clear that the welfare of cows will not be honestly addressed in the campaign: Dairy UK, by its own definition, “represent[s] the United Kingdom’s dairy industry, including the interests of farmers, milk purchasers, processors and milkmen.”
The AHDB does claim to represent both cattle and milk, but this could be viewed as a conflict of interests, considering that milk is now considered ‘inhumane‘.
According to Dairy UK executive Judith Bryans, the campaign will “give us a great opportunity to re-establish our credentials and celebrate dairy.”
This news comes as a huge disappointment for those attempting to expose the exploitation that characterises the dairy industry. Last month we celebrated the first ever World Plant Milk Day on 22nd August; last weekend around 5,000 vegans marched to Parliament in London; 2017 saw the Advertising Standards Authority confirming that milk can be described as ‘inhumane‘. But, for most vegan campaign groups, the resources and influence over the media does not exist for them as it does for the dairy industry.
This seems to be a recurring cycle, where the dairy industry attempts to discredit every source they view as a threat to their profits. In July this year the industry slandered the Medical Association when they showed support for a plant-based diet; in the same month they attempted to discredit popular documentary ‘What the Health.’
It seems the dairy industry are more concerned with their bottom line than they are with public health, and this could lead to more misleading propaganda from the dairy industry.
Image credit: Go Healthy Live Wealthy
This post was last modified on December 15, 2020 6:26 am