Director, Department of “Social and Institutional Change in Agricultural Development,” University of Hohenheim and qualified farmer 

Why is a red carpet being rolled out for cows? Cows as superstars – what’s the point? 

However, similar questions also arise in other areas. Why do the dairymen decorate their cows so magnificently for the cattle drive? And why do so many visitors come to see them? Just a tourist spectacle? 

From an agronomic perspective, one could point to the economic incentives associated with such practices. The exhibition system creates incentives – similar to a movie contest or a sports competition – in this case to breed the best cow and then walk her down the red carpet to receive a prize. 

At the cattle drive, only those dairy farmers who have not lost an animal, for example due to a fall, are allowed to decorate their cows – an incentive to take special care. 

As a professor of agricultural economics, I can understand such arguments, but from my own experience of dealing with cows during my training – and as the daughter of a mother who spent many summers on the mountain pastures – this interpretation is too narrow for me. 

I think it’s the joy of handling the cows, the bond with the animals, the enthusiasm for them and also a little pride that lies behind the red carpet or the festively decorated cows. 

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Student in the “Bioeconomy” Master’s program, member of the sustainability working group

The “red carpet” motif affects me more personally than professionally: “Staging” a cow for auction seems like an exaggeration of capitalism. It would be enough to inspect them in the cowshed or on the meadow. The red carpet, however, aestheticizes the act of selling, turns a living being into an event and lends the goods a macabre glamour.

In comparison, the red carpet in Hollywood stands for voluntarism, status, and self-expression. For humans, it is the perfect place for self-dramatization; here, an animal without a voice is standing in the spotlight. It is a perversion of the meaning of the red carpet.

The implications: Firstly, this aestheticization disguises potential violence and normalizes commercialization. Secondly, the stage creates symbolic value-added branding that rewards market logic and dampens empathy. Thirdly, it turns us into spectators who are part of the ritual: The focus is shifted from essence to value. Ultimately, the scene reflects how we also turn people into brands and questions dignity and responsibility: Whose value is being celebrated here – that of the living being or the object?

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Director of dairy farming at the Meiereihof research station, University of Hohenheim

If the cow recognizes the person looking after the animal as a “leader,” it will follow them into unknown territory.

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