My cow wants to have fun too

My cow wants to have fun too ( Swedish: Min ko vill ha roligt ) is a book by Astrid Lindgren and Kristina Forslund .

content

On May 3, 1985 Astrid Lindgren wrote an article in Dagens Nyheter magazine . In this, she criticizes the development of the so-called cow trainer , which is supposed to use electric shocks to induce the cows to deposit their cow dung in the cesspool. In addition, she does not think it is right that the cows are often no longer allowed to graze outside, but are locked up. Astrid Lindgren then receives a letter from Kristina Forslund, a veterinarian and lecturer at the University of Veterinary Medicine. She asks Lindgren to help her with an awareness campaign aimed at improving animal husbandry in Sweden. At this point, Forslund is about to give up her career as a veterinarian. She is fed up with prescribing antibiotics and medication to animals whose real problem is poor animal welfare. The only way Forslund sees it to get on with its business is by changing things that they think are going wrong. This is followed by a collaboration between the two, in which Astrid Lindgren brings her journalistic skills and Forslund her specialist knowledge. From now on, write and publish both articles in the Swedish magazine Expressen . These articles are devoted to animal suffering and profit maximization. In the articles, Lindgren and Forslund mainly criticize agricultural policy, the industrialization of agriculture and less the farmers who, according to the authors, also want the animals to be safe.

background

The book contains articles that Astrid Lindgren and Kristina Forslund wrote for newspapers as well as personal letters in which the authors criticize the handling of animals in factory farming.

Publications

After the articles were published in the Swedish newspaper Expressen , Lindgren and Forslund put the articles together in chronological order. A comment was written after each article about what happened after it was published. In addition, the authors write how their collaboration came about and how they feel about the change in the Animal Welfare Act. In 1990 the book was first published in Sweden. It has been translated into German, Dutch and parts of it into English.

Part of the book was published in 1996 as an epilogue to the book Mein Bauernhof by Peter Weber and Katharina Lausche.

Effects of the texts

The publication of the texts resulted in a new animal welfare law in Sweden. This was “given” to Astrid Lindgren on her 80th birthday and was named Lex Lindgren . At the time, it was the strictest animal welfare law in the world.

These are the main things added to the law:

• §2 Animals should be treated well and protected from unnecessary suffering and disease.
• §4 Animals must be kept and cared for in a good animal environment so that this promotes their health and enables them to behave naturally.
• §13 When animals are brought to be slaughtered and slaughtered, they must be spared unnecessary complaints and suffering.

Forslund and Lindgren had fought for the new law for three years. However, they were not satisfied with it; although it had improved a bit for some animals, it was not enough and in most areas there was no improvement at all. For example, grazing rights were only granted to breeding animals, not fattening animals. The size of the chicken cage was not increased until much later and the slaughtering regulations were kept too vague.

reception

“Anna-Liese Kornitzky's Swedish translation of“ My cow also wants to have fun ”is a sympathetic plea against factory farming that even thirty years after it came about can encourage young people to get involved in this still important topic. "

- leseforum.isb.bayern.de

"I can highly recommend the book, as it packs the topic in a child-friendly manner but still doesn't glorify or gloss over anything!"

- istdasvegan.eu

literature

• "My cow wants to have fun too". Astrid Lindgren - with a difference: "Interfering in the animal protection debate. In: Praxis Deutsch, 24 (1997) 146, pp. 48–53 Hessisches Landesinstitut für Pädagogik, Wiesbaden
• What Augusta the pig says against the masters of making profits , article in the Braunschweiger Zeitung

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Our namesake - Astrid Lindgren .
2. ↑ My cow wants to have fun .
3. ^ "Min ko vill ha roligt" .
4. ↑ She never received the Nobel Prize. But even without ordination by the highest court, Astrid Lindgren became the most successful children's book author in the world. .
5. ↑ Astrid Lindgren one listens! .
6. ↑ Lex Lindgren .
7. ↑ Torbjörn Esping, Ylva Esping (2015): Monsterbiff till middag ?: Fusket och snusket med vårt älskade kött. Wahlström & Widstrand. ISBN 9146228489
8. ↑ What the pig Augusta says against the masters of making profits .
9. ↑ My cow wants to have fun too .
10. ↑ Review: My cow wants to have fun too by Astrid Lindgren and Kristina Forslund .