Fair Oaks Farms:
Fair Oaks Dairy Farms is a dairy and agriculture facility located in illinois and indiana. They have created brands based on promoting the proper and humane care of the cows from whom their products are sourced. The Fairlife website states, “As dairy farmers, we treat our cows with the utmost care, because we know that their health and happiness are the foundation of our business” and that “sustainability isn’t just something we claim, it’s how we live”. On the fourth of June 2019, Animal recovery mission (ARM) released three months worth of undercover footage of Fair Oaks farms, showing that none of the statements above are true. 

False advertisement and misguided public:
The reason as to why this case became a popular topic on the news in america is because Fair Oaks Farms was associated with glamoring the facade of good animal care by hiding their calf land and barns from the public using a “Fair Oaks Farms Dairy Adventure”. This is a place where Fair Oaks Farms falsely advertises their dairy production by portraying an ideal dairy farm with fair and healthy treatment of the cows and calves, as well as numerous activities for children and families. This misguides the public to believe that all Fair Oaks Farms are set up in this optimal, have-it-all experience, but Animal Recovery Mission has recently proven that none of what Fair Oaks Farms is showing the public is true.

Animal Recovery Mission:
Animal recovery mission (ARM) is a vanguard investigative animal welfare organization that was founded in 2010 by Richard Couto. They conduct undercover investigations on animal-based businesses to make sure that the animals are treated as they should be. When they potentially discover an organization that abuse their animals, ARM collaborates with local law enforcement, State attorneys, environmental protection agencies and The Animal Legal Defense Fund to produce concrete evidence to put an end to criminal acts involving animal torture.

ARM discovers Fair Oaks Dairy Farms:
An investigator from ARM applied for a job at Fair Oaks Dairy Farms, Fairlife, Natural Prairie dairy, and Strauss veal feeds  with the purpose to examine and inspect the treatment of the cows and calves. The investigator was soon hired by Fair Oaks Farms and immediately began working as a milker, without any proper or professional training. Hours after he began his shift, the investigator witnessed extreme and violent animal abuse. On a daily basis employees were observed hitting and punching cows, and using the milking claws to hit cows in the udders. Cows were also poked, stabbed, and shoved with metal tubes and broomsticks. When cows in the milking line would not cooperate, frustrated employees can be seen bending and breaking bones in the cows tails as punishment for not entering the confusing milking rotary system. The investigator also witnessed employees forcing cows into the stall by punching, kicking, slapping, and hitting in the cow in the udders and reproductive system. This is a clear contradiction to the Fairlife statement on their website, “We know that nothing is as important to us as the health and well-being of our animals. Our world revolves around making sure that our cows are fed well, treated humanely and live in comfortable, stress-free conditions.”

Fair Oaks Farms Dairy Adventure
Another example of Fair Oaks Farms completely falsely advertising their business is that they have four locations, one of which is the “Fair Oaks Farms Dairy Adventure”. Even though Fair Oaks Farms claims that the dairy venture shows how well they treat their animals, the dairy venture is in a completely separate location than their actual farms. This shows how Fair Oaks Farms is pulling the wool over everyone's eyes by only showing the general public their amusement park-like dairy farm, whilst shielding them from the actual dairy farm and how they actually treat their animals. 

Calf Relocation
The relocation of the newborn calves also shows the horrific truth of Fair Oaks Farms. Seconds after the calf is born, employees violently rip them away from their mothers. The mothers do not even get a chance to see their baby before they are being dragged away. Mothers and calves wail for one another after being separated at birth, and the sounds that they make are heartbreaking. Even more disturbing, the moms are immediately placed in the milking area, some of them even still have the placentas from just having given birth, hanging out of them whilst being milked.  

After immediately being ripped away from their mothers, the calves are relocated to a land specifically for calf housing. The treatment of the calves is one of the most disturbing subjects of this case. Tons of thousands of calves are put into isolation; filthy, unsanitary enclosures. Calves suffer and die in extreme temperatures, and deformed calves are grown due to the lack of space. In order to produce large volumes of high quality milk, dairy cows must be systematically healthy, reproductively sound, and receive adequate nutritional support. Proper housing for calves should include a large outdoor area where the calf can run, buck, and play freely, as well as have constant access to their mother and social interaction with other cows. Not plastic pens with no isolation from extreme temperatures, that barely has enough space to fit the calf. The people associated with Fair Oaks Farms have a complete disregard for the animal’s health and well-being. One would think that they would at least care about money and finances. Fair Oaks Farms is losing money by letting the cattle die, but when they sell $2 billion annually, and is part-owner of one of the largest cheese plants in the world, the well-being of the cows is their smallest concern. 

Calf Feeding
In Fair Oaks Farms, calves die daily due to employees horrifically abusing them during feeding times. Wanting their mother’s utter and not the artificial bottle, frustrated workers beat and force feed the calves to death. At the hands of management, calves bleed out and suffer long drawn-out deaths. When the employees are finished feeding the calves, they beat them with the bottle, forcefully step on their heads, lift them by their tails and literally throw them back into their far too small housing. 

Employee mental health
Whilst watching ARM’s documentary on this topic, I constantly asked myself how a person can do this to a living being, some of them being only minutes or hours old. There is something truly disturbing about the employees that work at these dairy farms. There are professionals such as veterinarian Dr. Andria Jones-Bitton that prove that being  abusive towards animals is a symptom of a violent mindset and suffering mental health. Jones-Bitton states that “If farmers are struggling with their own well-being and motivation, they’re likely going to find it difficult to invest in improving animal welfare. When we’re mentally unwell, it’s hard to care for ourselves, let alone to care for others, even when those others are really important to us.” (Glen) 

The way that the employees at Fair Oaks Farms treat their cattle is more than just abusive. They are murdering numerus calves daily with no regard for the company’s finances. This shows just how much their mental state is suffering, and how unpredictable they are. A person with such mental state is is no condition to be around animals, and who is to say that their violent mindset can’t also develop towards humans?

Other Disturbing Discoveries 
Other concerning discoveries that ARM made when completing the undercover investigation include unprofessional branding and violation of branding equipment, cooperation with veal production companies, and illegal marihuana farms on Fair Oaks Farms property. 

Branding:
Branding is the act of marking an animal to keep track of its general information and bloodline. Pigs and sheep are branded using a plastic notch in the ear, but cows are often branded by using a tool that allows you to burn the skin of the animal to create a desired symbol. Livestock branding has been practiced for thousands of years, but should only be completed with the right equipment and in sanitary conditions. During the branding process, the calves are often checked for soundness to check how they walk, to see if they have any joint problems. They should also receive shots to improve and boost their immune system against diseases, and new ear tags to control flies and other parasites. If not done properly, branding can quickly become an unsafe, dangerous, unsanitary manner. There are numerous infections that can occur as a result of poor branding, and it is something that needs to be taken very seriously, which Fair Oaks Farms does not do. The calves of Fair Oaks Farms are branded in their unsanitary enclosures, surrounded by filth and dirt. The majority of the time, this leads to serious infections, and unnecessary pain for the calf. As punishment, the calves are inhumanely burned and beaten with branding irons. 

Veal Market:
Veal is the meat of calves, and in contrast to the beef from older cattle, veal can be produced from eather sex and any breed. However, most veal comes from male calves that are not used for breeding. In the dairy industry, males are not necessary or crucial for the dairy production, other than for breeding and reproduction. As a result of this, the majority of male calves are sent to veal markets and need to suffer in terrifying living conditions. The calves are housed in 75x150 cm indoor crates with no space for them to turn or move. They need to sleep in their own excrement and urine with no access to the outdoors, waiting to be slaughtered. The veal market is often frowned upon, and Fair Oaks Farms claims that “We at Fair Oaks Farms do not send calves to Veal Market”. ARM witnessed calves being loaded onto two trucks, and tail the calf transport across indiana to ID their destinations. They followed them and made it out to “Midwest Veal”, a large veal production and slaughter. It was uncovered that in fact all of their male calves are sent to veal markets all over the United States, and the vast majority of them died in these veal markets. 

Illegal drugs:
Animal Recovery Mission also discovered illegal drug production of cocaine and marihuana being grown and sold on this property, which was never addressed by the owners of this farm

Solutions?
Fair Oaks Farms clearly needs to improve the way they operate their farms, and Animal Recovery Mission’s solution was to shut Fair Oaks Farms down. Other solutions include regular audits and better camera surveillance. 

Regular Audits:
Fairlife is one of the organizations that get their milk from Fair Oaks Farms. As a brand, even though they’re not the actual dairy farm, Fairlife has the responsibility to complete audits multiple times a month to make sure that the product they are producing, packaging, and selling to the public, meets the standards that they’re advertising. Fairlife has now increased the amount of unannounced audits from 1 to 24 per year. Fairlife states that animal welfare is a top priority for their brand, which makes one wonder why they didn’t have 24 audits a year in the first place to make sure that the suppliers (such as Fair Oaks Farms) are upholding the standards that they advertise. 

Camera Surveillance:
Fair Oaks Farms claim that they didn’t have cameras in their farms because they felt that if they used cameras, they demonstrated a lack of trust in their employees. Anytime one runs an operation where the welfare of animals is the top priority, one should definitely have camera surveillance. Camera surveillance has nothing to do with distrusting your employees for taking care of the well-being and safety of your animals, and managing that in a proper, responsible way.  

Global Issue?
The choices we make in our communities can influence change in governance.
Keep in mind that this is not the only dairy farm that this happens at. It happens to all of them, or at least the vast majority. “Mercy for animals” is another organization similar to ARM that also shared undercover footage of “buckeye veal” treating their cattle the same way. Animal recovery mission also investigated four other cattle-based businesses including “Fairlife”(Fair Oaks Farms is one of their suppliers), “Natural Prairie dairy”, and “Strauss veal feeds” who all treated their animals similarly. The treatment of animals in factory farms are the same all over the world, not only in the United States, and there are so many other divisions of animal abuse other than factory farms. These include illegal horse slaughter, racehorse abuse, capturing of wild horses and burros in Walker lake and Salt river, over 20 different illegal slaughter farms, animal sacrifices in Santeria, Palo mayombe, Eid-Al-Adha, Makar Sankranti, and multiple festivals. There is also animal fighting in Gallo and El triangulo, elephant tourism and animal markets in India, bear bile farms, and fox and coyote penning. Animal abuse happens daily everywhere, and these types of establishments cannot be supported. We, as a community, can refuse animal-based establishments and influence a reduction of the horrific abuse that happens everyday. The governments must take action and make stricter rules against the way animals are held captive, and modernize old traditions that abuse animals such as animal fighting or animal sacrifice. 

Sources (MLA)
YouTube, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUN3j0x2rIY 
“Fair Oaks Farms.” ARM Investigations, 12 Oct. 2019, https://animalrecoverymission.org/
Charles, Dan. “Chasing A Dream Built On Dairy, This Master Of Milk Came Home.” NPR, NPR, 4 Feb. 2017, https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/02/04/513091341/chasing-a-dream-built-on-dairy-this-emperor-of-milk-came-home?t=1573132501183 
Glen, Barb. “Animal Neglect Linked to Mental Health.” The Western Producer, Var Code = "Googletag.cmd.push( Function() {Googletag.display('Dfp-Ad-Slot--flag_leaderboard'); } );"; If(Typeof LazyAds == "Undefined"){ Var LazyAds = []; } LazyAds.push({DivId: 'Dfp-Ad-Slot--flag_leaderboard', Code: Code}); 13 Dec. 2018, https://www.producer.com/2018/12/animal-neglect-linked-to-mental-health/