HAPPY COWS
TIME: 35 minutes
PURPOSE: Visualize a day in the life of a “happy cow.” Compare it to CAFOs. Engage in
a discussion around the impacts of a “happy cow” vs a “not happy cow” on people and the
environment
Adapted from the Food Justice Curriculum by the Oakland Food Policy Council and HOPE
Collaborative http://www.hopecollaborative.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Session3.
FSC_.1.2015.pdf
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INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Break participants into groups of 3.
2. Provide groups with sheets of paper and markers. Give two minutes have them draw what
the day in the life of a happy dairy cow looks like.
3. Ask them to share the picture with the larger group.
4. Using some of the visuals, remove each of the various aspects of the happy cow life.
5. Ask participants their opinion about how the quality of food is affected when we removed
the aspect of the happy cow life. Share some examples:
a. Normally, cows are ruminants – they eat grass. If we replace the grass for grain what
happens? Cows get ulcers and need antibiotics.
b. How does this affect milk cows produce? How does it affect you?
6. Show a visual of a Happy Cow who under natural circumstances lives in a healthy ecosystem
where diseases are controlled through fresh air, natural and healthy foods. Walk them
through the diagram:
a. Healthy Cows live in an open space to graze and eat in wide-open pastures and sustain
themselves by eating grass
b. Cows sustain the grass providing fertilizer for it.
c. The wild grass takes up nutrients in through the soil, the cow eats the grass, and the cow
re-distributes the nutrients back into the soil through excretion.
d. This process repeats itself when decomposers (bacteria and fungi) break down the poop
into a chemical form that can be then taken up by the grass. It is a complete and closed
system that requires little to no external inputs.
6. Show the diagram of the “Unhappy Cow” for contrast. Cows are confined in small spaces
and fed unnatural diets of soy and corn. This system is unhealthy for the cows without any
natural systems.
6. Ask: What do you notice about these cows?
6. Examples: confined in small space and given processed food; given antibiotics to
maintain cow’s health; people eat meat with residues of antibiotics; natural ecosystem
is not completed
PRINT
MATERIALS: Sheets of paper and markers; printed handout (following page)