The disturbing reality behind America’s milk and cheese — and the fight to end it

This story is part of a series supported by Animal Charity Evaluators, which received a grant from EarthShare. Deep-blue, regulation-happy California is not usually imagined as factory farm country. But the state leads the US in agricultural output, and it is, by a wide margin, America’s top producer of dairy, one of the most brutal sectors in our food system. And it turns out that one of the most foundational, most disturbing practices found in modern dairy farming may already be illegal under a California animal cruelty law — but state officials have shown little inclination to look into it. At any given time, 9 million to 10 million dairy cows populate farms across the US, and California is home to 1.7 million of them, the vast majority of whom are raised on mega dairies. Because cows, like other mammals, must give birth to produce milk, dairy farming is organized around continuous cycles of pregnancy, birth, and lactation.

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