Not a Benz Star - more a VW scandal

Our county has the third largest number of dairy cows in all of Germany and the highest in Bavaria.



Germany has 4.2m dairy cows, the UK 1.9m, the USA 9m. You would be amazed at the statistics of dairy cows worldwide: the USA is “only" #7 in the world, even Ethiopia and Sudan have more. India is #1 with 46m.


Our county has 70,566 cows on 1.825 farms, an average of 39 cows per farm with an average of 39 hectares of total land (green-land and arable). The Uk has an average of around 150 cows on 110 hectares.
 
It totally beats me how the UK's “Campaign to Protect Rural England” can claim Brexit is a major opportunity to save small farming – for the last 45 years, UK farmers have been bitterly complaining that the EU has been over-generous to small farmers in Germany, France and Italy and holding back progress in the UK?!*?!*
 
Very roughly the milk-producing cows get 66% of their food from grass products (hay, fresh grass and grass silage) and about 20% of maize silage, the rest from cereals, bought pelleted and other feeds such as the waste from beer brewing –  brewer's grains or draff.
 
The cows in the Blip are typical of the miserable life the majority of cows in our county live in. Chained up from the moment they produce their first calf until they are no longer producing the megalitres/day expected of them and are slaughtered. Most can’t even walk to the slaughter truck.
 
A milk-producing cow may have a life of 4 or 5 years. Naturally, a cow would live for 30 years. I doubt the majority of cows ever get to eat hay in winter and quite probably no longer get fresh grass cut and served up to them, Most farmers now simply use silage 7/365. Easy work and you don’t need to take much account of the weather or need any knowledge. Simply press the starter button on the tractor.
 
And these Bliped girls are lucky to be just 5 metres from the main road and at least get to see a large number of lorries and cars passing.  You can see a bit of my car window frame (top left) as I photographed them this evening. The double door facing on to the road is their only source of natural light and air. You can also see that the roof is barely high enough for a  tractor to drive on to the food platform and luckily the cows are chained up and can’t bang their hornless heads on the ceiling.
 
A cow produces about 9kg of VOCs, smog-forming gases and more than a car. In rural areas, more than 50% of the methane is from farm animals. And it’s not mainly coming from what you are thinking but belching – a mature dairy cow will belch 400-500 litres of methane a day while a human in whatever form may produce a teaspoon full. Can you imagine what it’s like in there on a 30°C summer day?
 
A 2010 study estimated 34,000 deaths from air pollution in Germany, 45% of these from agriculture, 20% from transport and 13% from industry. There are three dairy farms within 50 metres of the Bliped spot and a road junction of two main roads. I suspect the air quality ranks with London.

 
Our county statistics are:
141,000 cattle (dairy and beef)
141,000 inhabitants
147,000 registered vehicles – cars, trucks, buses, tractors, motorbikes
 
Wonder if it’s time that the Tourist Office stop promoting the area as the health region for air, land and water? Our county has the lowest number of wild flowering plants in all of Bavaria, the meadows mowed better than golf courses and over fertilised.
 
And maybe the photos of cows on alpine meadows with cute bells around their necks ought to be banned except for the few and thankfully increasing farmers who only feed hay in winter to cows in free open large barns and fresh grass in summer, hopefully, on a chew-your-own basis.
 
It’s pure coincidence that the Bliped cows are those of my current enemy #1. I don’t actually damn all farmers who have had to keep their cows, inherited from their forefathers, this way. But I do damn those that are not doing anything, not even looking at the possibilities of changing their systems. These farmers time is limited.
 
It’s nothing short of a disgrace and ranks alongside our poultry production where the girls are currently working overtime to get our Easter Eggs to the table on time.
 
BUT we consumers also need to realise we have to pay the price for acceptably produced farm products.