We raised Durocs for many years in the 1970s. We had a small farrowing barn; I’m guessing we had 30 sows or so. I’m not exactly sure of the timelines or how many pigs we had, because we got out of the pig business when I was around 12.

I know it had something to do with a disease that killed the piglets and the disease was difficult to get rid of, so Dad just sold all the sows. I remember seeing them loaded into a truck and I remember feeling sad. I loved our hogs, which roamed our pasture.

Dad instilled in us respect for the animals we raised. We knew we would eat some of them, but we treated them kindly. As I wrote for last year’s Farm Safety Week, my brother Andy and I didn’t always lead safe lives, and we did prod one of the sows once repeatedly and she chased us.

Dad did not believe us when we said we had no idea why the sow was chasing us. He told us he had better never catch us doing anything mean to the animals.

As the news broke last week about the alleged animal abuse at Fair Oaks Farms, which is located off Interstate 65 between Indianapolis and Chicago, the farm’s owner came out with a video saying he had no idea this was going on. He also said he had no idea their bull calves were being sent to a veal factory.

Fair Oak’s website says they have 80-100 calves born each day on the farm. Casey Smith, a reporter for the Indianapolis Star, recently took tours the farm offers daily to visitors and reported the tour guides saying the farm has 8,000 pigs and milks 3,000 cows daily. The Chicago Tribune reports the farm has 35,000 dairy cows.

That’s a lot of animals. The farm also has tours for crops as well as children’s educational areas. There is a restaurant, and a hotel was recently built nearby. News stories are saying between 500,000-600,000 people visit what is called by the farm “the Disneyland of agricultural tourism” each year. The farm’s website has visitor reviews, many of which say what a great place it is to take children.

Now if those children have access to the Internet, they can see some graphic videos of calves on that farm being dragged, kicked, and hit. There is also video of dead calves – hardly the image one wants when thinking of a Disney-type experience.

We could debate the legality and ethics of the group that took the undercover video. But veterinarian and owner Mike McCloskey has not denied the abuse. Instead, he said he was devastated to learn of it and had no idea it was happening. He also said he did not know the bull calves were being sent to a veal processor.

Obviously with an empire as large as Fair Oaks, there is no way McCloskey could know everything that was happening. So that raises the issue of what the risks are of large factory farming operations. When we grow so big we can’t monitor everything that is happening, we need to either make sure we have the right employees in place to act in our best interests or we need to find a way to only farm enough land/livestock that we can monitor.

Whatever your beliefs are regarding animal rights, factory farming, and undercover videos, this story is out there. And there have been economic impacts.

Some stores have stopped selling milk from the dairy. I had dinner with friends over the weekend who said they just canceled their plans to visit the farm after they were made aware of the videos. This would have been their first visit to Fair Oaks, and they had been planning on taking a group of relatives who were visiting from another state.

The story also is showing people a side of dairy they may not have known about: The calves. In a Disney movie those calves would live with their mothers, aging to become happy cattle grazing in pastures and growing old.

While the farm touts its transparency all over its website, many people appear shocked to learn that the calves are taken from their mothers and bottle-fed so the cows can produce milk for human consumption. When a farm compares itself to a Disney experience, this type of information can have long-term consequences.

The vast majority of farmers are amazing stewards of the earth and treat their livestock as compassionately as possible. But in this day and age where everyone has a video recorder at their fingertips in the form of their cell phone, everyone has to be aware that their actions could be recorded. When you go about your life, ask yourself how your actions would be viewed by the general public.

The Fair Oaks videos may soon blow over and life may continue as normal soon for farm. Or, it could have long-lasting consequences. In a time when dairy farmers are already hurting and plant-based milk-like beverages are readily available, it certainly isn’t a good time to have this type of negative exposure.

I wish I had an answer to help the awesome dairy farmers of the world. I do believe in transparency. As the vast majority of the population moves further away from the farm, it is important for us to remind people where their food comes from.

I met a man who works for Answers Pet Food in Pennsylvania. He and his wife bought one of the cows the Answers farms raises for their own meat consumption. The cow is being raised by one of the Answers farmers and will be butchered on the farm.

He said he and his wife will be there on the day the cow is butchered. He said they both feel it is important that if they are going to eat the meat, they have to also be able to witness the death of the animal.