Milk and Dairy
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The current state of the dairy industry negatively affects the milk you buy and the farmers who bring it to you. This dilemma— and many other serious issues concerning our food system— can be addressed with a fair farm bill.
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Fact Sheets:
Today‚ dairy industry doesn’t work for consumers, who pay more than ever at the grocery store, or for small and mid-sized family farmers, who aren’t paid enough for the milk they produce to break even. It seems like everyone is losing, except for the processors and retailers who skim off all the cream.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has estimated that over 40 percent of large dairy operations in the United States inject their cows with recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH), a synthetic hormone that induces cows to produce more milk. The use of rBGH remains controversial and was not approved in Canada, Japan or the European Union because of negative effects on animal health. There are also concerns that the use of rBGH may be linked to cancer in humans.
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See our map tool charting the distribution of factory farms in the U.S and read the companion report. |
Consolidation and Price Manipulation in Dairy Industry
Despite what the picture on the package suggests, the dairy products you buy probably don’t come from a local dairy farm that supplies a local processing plant. Over the last 20 years, the dairy industry has transformed from a local network of farms and processors to mega-dairies that sell their milk to a tiny number of corporate-style milk cooperatives and processing companies.
Reports:
Over the last 20 years, the dairy industry has been transformed at all levels, from the cows that produce its raw materials to the cooperatives that secure its prices and the processors that turn milk into finished products for consumers. Massive mega-dairies, whose herds may receive antibiotics and growth hormones to boost production, ship milk across the country to be mechanically separated and resold as everything from ice cream to industrial protein concentrates
rBGH: How Artificial Hormones Damage the Dairy Industry and Endanger Public Health
Consumer pressure on dairy companies to abandon the use of this controversial drug has resulted in an increasing number of companies moving to rBGH-free milk and making sure that consumers know they’ve made the change by labeling their products as such. After years of successful campaigns that educated dairy consumers about the risks of rBGH, banned rBGH milk in some school districts, and pressured major national companies to go rBGH-free, we are at risk of losing the right to know how our milk was produced.