{"id":5924,"date":"2026-04-25T11:47:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T11:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/5924\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T11:47:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T11:47:09","slug":"outcry-over-conditions-of-young-calves-imported-into-netherlands-from-ireland-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/5924\/","title":{"rendered":"Outcry over conditions of young calves imported into Netherlands from Ireland \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

An outcry over the conditions of young calves imported into the Netherlands<\/a> from Ireland has heaped pressure on Dutch agriculture businesses to stop buying them from the Republic.<\/p>\n

The Netherlands is a major buyer of Irish bull calves, which are a byproduct of the dairy sector and are transported when about one month old by truck and ferry to the Continent where they are later slaughtered for meat.<\/p>\n

The unweaned calves, too young to eat solid food, have no food or water for approximately 24 hours on the journey, according to a new investigation by Dutch public broadcaster NOS.<\/p>\n

The European Commission views this as contrary to EU animal welfare regulations, though the Irish Government rejects this.<\/p>\n

Using tag numbers, the investigation tracked more than 10,000 calves from their birth in Ireland to their arrival at 85 farms in the Netherlands, finding that some were transported when just two weeks old.<\/p>\n

Groups campaigning against the practice have published footage of calves thirstily licking the air as they arrive on trucks.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Realities of horse cruelty: \u2018You can\u2019t undo the misery the animal has been through\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

In response to a previous expos\u00e9, major Dutch meat producer VanDrie had already promised to end imports of calves from Ireland by 2026.<\/p>\n

It is now facing renewed calls to do so in the wake of the investigation, and there are calls for the Dutch parliament to impose an outright ban.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Dutch authorities want to ensure that animals do not go without milk for so long, but see few options to take action: it is unclear who is responsible for supervision on the boat,\u201d the NOS reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf violations are detected within the Netherlands, Irish carriers simply do not pay the fines and continue despite prohibitions. Ireland is not co-operating.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response to a request for comment, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine said it \u201ctakes the issue of animal welfare most seriously\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIndependent data on the health and welfare of Irish calves shows that they have significantly lower mortality and lower antibiotic usage compared to calves transported from other member states indicating that they arrive in good condition to other member states,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n

The department said it \u201cprovides mutual assistance when appropriate\u201d to authorities of other member states even breaches of regulations on the transport of live animals out of Ireland occur.<\/p>\n

The department has funded research into the development of a system that would allow calves to be fed milk while inside trucks, it added, saying it hoped it could be brought to a pilot stage in 2027. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An outcry over the conditions of young calves imported into the Netherlands from Ireland has heaped pressure on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5925,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5432,17,1797,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-5924","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-netherlands","8":"tag-department-of-agriculture-food-and-the-marine","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-european-commission","11":"tag-netherlands"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}