Cowlifornia

The industrial-scale dairy farming pursuit of producing high-yield products and has neglected cows basic rights, which also caused a lot of carbon footprint (especially methane) to the environment. The Central Valley is a region faces severe water shortage challenges, however, the advocacy nonprofit Food and Water Watch estimates that it takes 142 million gallons of water a day to maintain the dairy cows in California. On the other hand, the public may not be aware of the amount of dairy farms and the living conditions of cows, because most of them are surrounded by fields of feed crops – the fact that cows living quality is bad and the dairy industry uses millions of gallons of water a day is not being awareness enough. For the future of dairy industry, we should stop the expansion of existing industrial- scale dairy farms, find a more sustainable dairy design strategy not only limits the water use or carbon footprint, but also improve cows’ living quality. The design starts with the protection of cows welfare and aims to prioritize cows’ physical health and emotional pleasure, finally there would be a Cowtopia for cows to live their happy lives.