Contracts can be tricky. We are all in contracts of one kind or another. Marriage contracts, milk supply contracts, banking contracts. We enter into them in order to obtain benefit.

But we often like to haggle and re-negotiate terms. Whenever you negotiate a contract you should always look the other party in eye.

Cattle men know all about eye contact too. When we want to get past a cow in the lane, the secret is not to look her in the eye. In fact, look the other way as you walk past her. If you want her to move on in front if you, then you do look her straight in the eye.. There is a lot of wisdom in the eye of a cow and generations of cattle men and women have learned to respect and work with it.

It is all part of the “Human Bovine contract” thats over 15,000 years old. Farmers do the daily haggling over terms. When introducing a heifer to the milking parlour, or a calf to halter training or getting a herd out of a field, there is an age old dance to be played out.

Human brute force and ignorance gets nowhere. Like dealers on a fair day, the ritual has to played out, even though the final outcome is certain.

All part of the Human Bovine contract by which our two species have coexisted amicably for mutual benefit. We cannot eat grass, they can. We mind them when they are alive and respect them in death. For both species it has been a great deal.

Exploitation

These days I hear some people refer to it as exploitation. And, right enough, there are times when there is exploitation. The cows exploit me to work at saving hay for their bellies next winter. They exploit me to pay a vet when one of them stupidly chokes on a crab apple and they exploit me to protect them day and night from predators and parasites while they just lie around all day eating and chewing the cud. But, hey! That's a contract for ya!

Seriously though, the vast majority of people now know more about zoo animals than about farm animals. For most, the talking cow, fairy tale farms in children's books are their benchmark and they get rightly upset when they find out the reality is different.

In the recent past, children were likely to pass the open door of a cow house, a dairy, a butcher shop or a slaughter house on their way to school. They easily learned and accepted the Human Bovine contract and there were very few vegetarians.

But now these functions are all behind walls in prison like security and people are expected to trust the food that comes out of them. The big problem is that increasing numbers of people are not trusting and are boycotting our animal products.

Veganism

The growing number of young people who now espouse veganism, etc., must be challenged to think through the consequences. They think they are acting against "factory" farming but their actions hit every farmer in the pocket which can threaten the proper care for animals. The poor animals and their environment may lose out, which is not what those well meaning youngsters intended. It's the tricky “Law of Unintended Consequences”.

The recent changes in Tesco specification are a foretaste of what may come as each succeeding generation becomes more and more alienated from farming and the Human Bovine contract.

Farmers cannot leave it to the Tescos and the meat factories who only sell meat. We need to make eye contact with our consumers and sell them our way of living that is as old as time, our human bovine contract that's older than civilisation, our duty of care to our fellow creatures.

We need to loudly proclaim that drinking milk and eating dairy produce and beef is an essential term of this contract. It's our way of keeping faith and honouring a relationship that has served both humans and bovines so well. Its in the contract!