New Film Exposes Link Between Dairy, Leather, and Beef

Vegan documentary Deadly Dairy recently debuted in India. Animal-rights group Animal Equality India compiled footage it gathered from two years of undercover investigations at 107 dairy farms, two semen collection centers, 11 cattle markets, eight slaughterhouses, seven meat markets, and five tanneries to create the film. Deadly Dairy shows cows being forcibly impregnated, calves taken from their mothers, and emaciated dairy cows being sent to slaughter. While many people in India consider cows a sacred animal and abstain from eating them, consuming dairy continues to be a cultural norm. Deadly Dairy not only exposes the routine abuse and neglect present in India’s dairy industry but also reveals what the filmmakers call the “trifecta”—or how the beef and leather industries depend on dairy farmers’ “spent” cows. “Advertisers make us falsely believe that dairy animals live happily with their babies and we just take a portion of their milk,” AEI stated in promotional material for the film. “But the reality is no way closer to this. They are abused, their babies are taken away from them, and they are made to go through a never-ending cycle of cruelty.” While Deadly Dairy was made with the Indian demographic in mind, the film is available online to viewers worldwide.