Send in the cows

Saturday, February 18, 2012

EVER wondered how you get to enjoy a glass of milk? And not just any milk but milk from our province, particularly from the cows of La Granja, La Carlota. Sold under the frenchi-fied brand Le Grand, bottled products come in regular, chocolate and pandan. Got milk? That’s creamy, pasteurized milk from the cows in Negros.

Cows at La Granja do not graze on the grassy plains but are instead kept in individual pens in long shelters. If the cows can’t go to the grass, the grass goes to the cows. Of Holstein-Sahewal breed from New Zealand, these cannot withstand our tropical sun so they are kept under the shade.
The ladies are bathed and the equipment are disinfected before extracting their milk. On the farm level, milking is done manually while on the provincial level, milking is done mechanically.

Have something to report? Tell us in text, photos or videos.

When milking is over, the milk undergoes certain tests. First is the sensory test which involves, of course, the senses. Does the milk look right? Does it smell right?

Then we move on to the alcohol precipitation test where 1 milliliter of alcohol is mixed with 1 milliliter of milk. The liquids are shaken in a test tube. If no change in texture is seen, i.e. no specks form, the milk is okay. Otherwise, milk is rejected.

The last test is the white mastitis test. It’s just a matter of checking if the teats look suspicious.

Milk that has passed the above tests is brought to the plant where it is tested further using the above standards. The tests also include checking if milk contains more water than normal. This is to find out if some farmers might have diluted the milk on the way to the plant. (Ahem…just, uhm, making sure, sir.) Well, when things are a-okay, milk moves on to the pasteurizing process.

The process of milking may raise some issues among animal rights activists, foremost of which is separating the calf from the mother to ensure the continuous flow of milk for commercial purposes. The calves are placed in individual pens and, just like the adult bovines, are brought grass and not made to graze in the fields.

A gentleman who works there pointed out a cute three-day-old black and white calf that, he says, has already been sold. I asked why the calves are separated so soon from their mothers. He said that this is to prevent the mother and baby from bonding. Bonding causes the dams to be selfish and regulate their milk for their offspring, and this will make extraction of milk for human consumption quite difficult.

I can only see this point from a human perspective so I thought it was heart-wrenching for both mother and calf to be apart. The calves can’t even play with each other because they are kept in small pens.

I made friends with a brown calf by rubbing its curly-haired forehead. It wasn’t long when its tongue snaked out of its wee mouth and licked my hand. It licked my hand several times after that. The tongue was rough and only one thing came into my mind: lengua estofada.

Oh, the poor thing was starving for affection. When I rubbed its ear, it leaned its head to that side and pressed into my palm. I let go of the calf’s ear and turn to leave but what does the calf do? It backs up a bit and hops and paws the floor. The little thing wanted to play with me! It really was just a baby.

I read somewhere how investigations on dairy farms around the world showed that, in order for a female cow to continue giving milk, it should get pregnant again and give birth and the calf taken away. The process is repeated. And repeated while it’s convenient for the dairy farms.

The calves are sometimes slaughtered for veal at the convenience of the farm. Will my little friend share the same fate and not get to roam on a plain or frolic with its mother and friends ever in its short life?

Pardon me, my friends, for being maudlin because, back in La Granja, I had a very mooo-ving experience with one of God’s lovely creatures.