A cow in the pasture. A typical Dutch scene. The milk from our cows is sold throughout the world. Our cheese is world famous. The milk industry makes billions of Euro's. Behind this success lies a well-oiled milk industry. In our country live 1.6 million dairy cows which produce more than 12 billion litres of milk annually. And production will increase between 10 and 20 percent because this year's quota has been abolished.
That means that by 2020, 14 billion litres of milk will be produced. In the Netherlands, there are now more than 320 mega stables for dairy cows. Municipalities and provinces have granted licenses for another several hundred new mega stalls and certain additional 200,000 dairy cows. The number of cows that will never come out of the stable increases rapidly. Millions of litres of milk must be produced daily. The cow has become an "athlete" who is driven to extremes. But what are the consequences for man and the environment and how pure is our so-called pasture milk? Zembla examine the effects of the increase in Dutch milk production.
Director: Ton van der Ham Research: Suzan Borst Editor in Chief: Manon Blaas