24th February 2021

ITV reports on Jersey Dairy Reaction to Go Vegan World ads

ITV news reported on our Jersey bus ad campaign on 24th February last. Go Vegan World been running an animal rights educational campaign in Jersey, Gurensey, Shetland and the Isle of Man since October 2020. Jersey Dairy has objected to our ads on Liberty Bus that state ‘Dairy Takes Babies from their Mothers’ calling them ‘a misrepresentation’. The vast majority of dairy production is predicated on the separation of new born calves from their mothers. What part of the ad does Jersey Dairy regard as a misrepresentation of their standard industrial practice? Even if calves were not separated from their mothers, it would be immoral to take the milk of another species when it is entirely unnecessary for our health and wellbeing. Our ads accurately represent the unjust exploitation and slaughter of animals by the dairy industry and all animal using industries. The objection by Jersey Dairy is an attempt to retain the false image that there is something benign and essential about an industry that violates the rights of cows (and sheep and goats). Lets not forget that our dairy ad stating that humane milk is a myth was the subject of a previous investigation by the Advertising Standards Authority which, in a landmark ruling in 2018, found it to be accurate.

Liberty Bus operates the fleet of buses carrying the Go Vegan World ads. It operates under contract to and in partnership with the Jersey Department of Infrastructure, and the Government of Jersey gave permission for our ads to run. It is unjust of the dairy industry or anyone who profits from animal exploitation, to attempt to interfere with our right to freedom of speech and the right of members of the public to accurate information on the industry and the vegan alternative to the unnecessary exploitation and killing of animals.

The retort from Jersey Dairy is the usual reference to how well they treat the cows they exploit for profit. This is an attempt to defend themselves against their indefensible commodification of sentient beings. Go Vegan World does not concern itself with welfare reform of an already unjust system. It asks us to stop using other animals at all by educating the public on animal sentience, animal rights, and the moral imperative to be vegan.

Our campaign is an essential form of animal rights education. Most people are not vegan and they think that cows automatically produce milk for humans. They are not aware of the facts of selective breeding, the forced impregnation of cows so that they will give birth and lactate, or the fact that their calves are taken from them after birth. Most people are not aware that animals are slaughtered in the dairy industry. The aim of Go Vegan World is to educate people about these facts that we regard as their right to know and their responsibility to act on.

We are living on the precipice of environmental collapse due to climate catastrophe, loss of biodiversity and the risk of pandemics, all of which are related to our use of other animals. Even if people find it difficult to undo centuries of speciesism and understand our duty to respect the rights of other animals, the time has come to acknowledge the human benefits of living vegan, or at the very least transitioning to a vegan diet and a plant based economy.

It is time to stop fighting the messenger and encourage the public to be vegan, and support farmers to farm plants, not animals.