Vegan activists publish locations of 9,000 dairy farmers online

UK dairy farmers fear protests after vegan activists publish over 9,000 contact details through an online interactive map, entitled ‘Project CALF’. The site urges people to ‘Document – Protest – Expose’ the ‘atrocities of the dairy industry through citizen journalism, peaceful protesting and outreach’ and suggests using their map to obtain farm footage and talk to dairy farmers about their practices.

The online map, which is accessible to anyone, is made from the Food Standards Agency list of registered dairy farms in the UK, conducted in 2018. It’s unclear whether every farm has been marked but the information obtained is publicly available under an Open Government Licence and published by the government.

Farmers now fear that they will be targeted, after ‘Project CALF’ branded their work a ‘dirty business’ and boldly stated, ‘If dairy farms had glass walls, everyone would go vegan’.

The map is modelled after a similar project in Australia, in which Animal rights group ‘Aussie Farms’ released the contact details of 6,000 farms. Australian farmers and members of the public have now demanded the charity ‘Aussie Farms’ be banned from Facebook and for the Not-for-Profits Commission to retract Aussie Farms’ charitable status.