The annual initiative encourages farmers and the public to share positive messages on social media to help promote the British dairy sector to a wider audience.

The brainchild behind the initiative, livestock sustainability consultant Dr Jude Capper, said Februdairy works with ‘many wonderful people who care for their cows and produce milk and dairy products’.

Now, Animal Equality UK will counteract this year’s campaign by unveiling pro-vegan adverts in cities such as London, Leeds and Birmingham.

The animal rights organisation said it wants to focus on ‘dairy’s dirty secrets’.

“There is a cycle of suffering that goes into every glass of milk and the public deserves to know about dairy’s dirty secrets.

“If the industry won’t tell the truth, then we will,” the group said.

It said Februdairy is the sector’s ‘desperate attempt’ to promote British dairy produce at a time when ‘Veganuary’ sees popularity every January.

“Whether it’s local, organic, free-range or otherwise, these realities are an inescapable part of commercial farming,” Animal Equality UK added.

It comes as farmers and industry groups continue to highlight the fact that such vegan adverts wrongly demonise the British farming industry.

Recently, a Northern Irish transport firm removed adverts promoting veganism after local farmers feared they were spreading fake news.

The ads encouraged people to adopt a plant-based diet, and appeared on Translink’s fleet, which includes school buses, in Northern Ireland.

An advert on the Translink Foyle Ulsterbus read: ‘It’s not a personal choice when someone is killed, use plants not animals’.

But such posters had the ‘potential to do serious damage’ to the local agriculture industry and farmers’ livelihoods, the Ulster Farmers’ Union (UFU) said.