GETTY Vegans may brand milk 'inhumane' after a ruling by the Advertising Standards Authority

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The National Farmers' Union (NFU) complained to the watchdog after pressure group Go Vegan World placed adverts in newspapers in February claiming “humane milk is a myth”. The ruling has caused fury among dairy farmers, who have branded the advert, placed in national newspapers, “misleading”. But vegan campaigners have said the ruling proves their claim that milk production involves cruelty to young cattle.

GO VEGAN WORLD The advert, posted in national newspapers, was found to be not misleading

The poster, which featured a cow behind barbed wire set against a black background, featured a large headline that read: “Humane milk is a myth. Don’t buy it.” The ad continued that calves “trembled and cried piteously” after being separated “fresh from their mother’s wombs”. The ASA said: “Although the language used to express the claims was emotional and hard-hitting, we understood it was the case that calves were generally separated from their mothers very soon after birth, and we therefore concluded that the ad was unlikely to materially mislead readers.”

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The ad highlights that the problem faced by animals in the dairy industry is not how they are treated, but that they are used at all Sandra Higgins

But the NFU, which intends to appeal, disagreed. Michael Oakes, NFU dairy board chairman, said: “The vegan advert was misleading and our members, who are constantly looking to improve welfare standards, found it upsetting and demoralising.”

Go Vegan World, based in the Republic of Ireland, described the ruling as a “landmark”. Sandra Higgins, the group’s Director, said: “The aim of the ad is to let people know that no matter where the milk and dairy products they purchase have come from, whether an industrial-scale dairy farm or a smallholding, for each cow, legal, standard practice necessitates her pregnancy, the removal of her calf, and her slaughter, so that we can drink the milk that she produced to feed her infant.

“The ad highlights that the problem faced by animals in the dairy industry is not how they are treated, but that they are used at all. “The ad pertains to animal rights: the right of other feeling beings not to be our property and not to be used by us for our ends.”

GETTY More than 540,000 Britons are believed to be vegan