The issue here seems to be that people correlate 'organic' with 'high standards of animal welfare' , even though there's not necessarily any correlation between the two.
It is similar , i think, to the way in which a lot of people like to think that fairly traded food is somehow related to organic food (ie, assuming that if something is fairly traded then it will also be organic) , even though most fairly traded food is not organic, and the two standards are not necessarily connected in any way.
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"It is not right that an organic system should be so unbalanced and wasteful of what it produces - consumers do not expect organic dairy calves to suffer the same fate as non-organic."
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Then, it sounds like those consumers need to read up on what 'organic' means...
The term 'organic' in terms of produce or food products, simply means 'produced without artificial or chemical fertilizers or pesticides.'
I am left wondering .... what fate do they imagine these organic dairy calves would be going to, if not the same one as any other calves within the animal 'agriculture' industries ? And why would they imagine that ?
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But for the farmers there's no room for emotion, these exports are vital to the economic survival of their business.
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Anybody who thinks that buying dairy products doesn't directly support the live-export veal industry, take heed !
Rather than getting involved in contemplation about whether the fundamental definition of 'organic' should be changed to changed to include a completely seperate thing altogether, or not, I reckon that those consumers would be better advised to decide whether they want to continue to mentally-label organic animal products as being "By definition, produced to high standards of animal welfare in my opinion"
If it is more profitable to treat organic animals a bit better than non-organic ones, organic farmers are likely to treat organic animals slightly better than non-organic ones.
But, consumers can be sure that many of them will take their chances to treat their organic animals poorly, if it means making a little bit more profit.