Dairy Dual Part 2: Hormones, Antibiotics, and Raw Milk

PART 2. (For part 1 go here).

...In addition to the facts that small scale dairies are 1) more humane, 2) produce less waste, and 3) can have better economics here are a few more benefits of small scale dairies:

Milk bottles. Public domain.

4) Less use of rGBH, antibiotics, and other hormones

Since 1993 the growth hormone rGBH has been available to increase milk yields  in U.S. dairies (although it has never been approved in Canada or EU countries). This hormone is thought to compromise human health by altering hormone balances and potential causing an array of cancers. In cows it increases mastitis (infections of the milk ducts) and is thought to perpetuate the over-use of feedlot antibiotics and the corresponding antibiotic resistant pathogens. See Food and Water Watch’s How artificial hormones damage the dairy industry and endanger public health. In 2007, 42.7% of large-scale dairies used rGBH compared to only 9% of small scale dairies. 1 (One concern is that despite the public increasingly demanding rGBH-free milk many school districts continue to serve it). 

Dairy Dual (Part 1 of 2): Small Scale Dairies Verses Industrial CAFOs.

To say it is a tough time to be a small scale dairy farmer is an extreme understatement. For starters, there is this pernicious drought that is ravishing and altering the American landscape. As the government drops gargantuan agriculture subsidies on big businesses and a few select crops, primarily (GMO) corn and soybeans as well as allowing the centralization of slaughterhouses and meat and milk processing facilities, small farmers are having a hefty price tag to bear.

Factory farms now dominate the milk industry. The average factory farm dairy in Oklahoma has 2,400 cows. The remaining small dairy farmers are having to pay more to ship their milk much farther and finding any corn feed for finishing or to supplement if their pasture has dried up can be an expensive nearly full time job on it's own. This article does a great job of summing up the costs of being a small scale farmer while reminding us of the true costs of large scale industrial farming. If you have already eaten lunch, you may wish you hadn't after checking out the new website and book CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation) The Tragedy of Industrial Farm Factories and their image of how udderly painful being a commercial dairy cow is.

In contrast, here are some benefits of small scale dairies:

Image used with permission from The Crunchy Mamacita

Where the Cows Come Home

Sometimes you get a glimpse into the rural Americana of yore. My friend Paige's small dairy is just such a place, a place worth preserving. One of the few remaining small scale dairies in the United states. At the end of a dirt road, way out in the country, behind a garage full of antique cars and a steel building, rusting a little on the edges, is a little dairy started by her grandparents thirty ago.

Here you can find Jerseys, Holsteins, and a few cows that are crosses between the two. Here, unlike most American dairies, the land has been in the family for years, the infant cows are kept on site and dine on real cow's milk, instead of formula. Here the cows get to frolic in green grass and enjoy pasture chow. Here my friend dreams about expanding her business to selling farm fresh cheese, butter, yogurt, and kefir. 

Here three little boys dart around on their bikes and chase kite strings, dragon flies, and each other when their mom comes twice a day to do the milking. Here throngs of preschoolers and homeschool children get to gather to learn a real-life lesson of where their milk comes from.

"Dog."

"Dog". My one year old daughter greets the fuzzy creature before her with the only animistic noun she knows, while her one year old buddy leans in at eye level towards another baby cow who will likely lick his face. "Mama, do baby cows come out their mama's butts?" my three year old asks, prompting a discussion about birth while he chases a chicken behind a tree.

The parlor. Down in the pit.

We look at the large tank on the outside of the dairy that pumps in feed snacks through pipes on the ceiling for the cows during their daily milkings. The thirty milking cows produce milk that goes into the 1,250 gallon tank which is drained every other day by the milk truck who takes it to the milk cooperative where it will go to Oklahoma companies to make milk, cream, ice cream, and cheese. 

We go into the parlor, the section where the cows come to get milked. The stalls are in a herring bone pattern, coming out like ribs from a central spine. The farmers show us the lower section, the pit, where they go down where the udders are at eye level. The kids are fascinated by the tubes and wires. Pipes bring water and bleach for sterilization, corn for the cows, and then other pipes take the milk out from the milk cups. Here the cows enter on both sides of the U and go into their individual stalls. Cups about the length of a hand are placed on each udder. The feed comes in and the milk goes out. And then the cows, with a tap on the foreleg, (or in our case, the kids) run down the alley on the back slope towards the pasture- where the cows come home.  

Where the cows come home

The cows weren't the only ones giving out kisses...

In a dairy daze

Dear E,

Remember the summer we got together and I left you, after two weeks, to go study about ecology and sustainable farms in Washington state with Au Sable Institute of Environmental Studies? And then I went directly to a study abroad in England and the U.K. for four months? 

A favorite experience was touring a small scale organic dairy farm in Washington where they were milking around 80 head. It was obvious the animals were well cared for and well adored. The farmer's kids had named most of them. They were pastured except when they were being milked and were surrounded by the scents of clover, raspberries, and apples and all around everything was green. Their babies got to be near the mamas most of the time. It seemed like a pretty great place to be a cow, nay, a farmer. Naively at the time, like most Americans, I thought that just like the fisher price sets and the plexiglass displays at children's museums, this must be how it is at all dairies.

(Later I've learned, that in fact in the data from the last twenty years more than 50% of dairy cows in the US are in fact from Confined Animal Feeding Operations with more than 1000 head of cattle. [As of 2001. See CAFOs Uncovered: The Untold Costs of Confined Animal Feeding Operations by the Union of Concerned Scientists, p.22]. Ugh).

More than half of my time in England was spent in rural Suffolk county running down serene cobblestone paths with curious dairy cows peering at me over ancient stone fences.  (Until very recently CAFOs have been rejected in England. This may be changing). The other half was spent eating an inordinate amount of artisan local cheeses, some of which were made from raw milk.  A visit to Neal's Dairy Yard in Covent Garden was one of the most formative culinary experiences I had ever had. After adjusting to the pungent aromas of many fresh cheeses combined, I was astounded by so much well made floor-to-ceiling cheese, cheese that was bigger than my head.

I was there reading all the pastoral poets and these romantics and later American transcendentalists seemed a marvelous contrast to the greasy cogs of the industrial revolution. I returned further enamored with the rural lifestyle. And had our relationship not already been in motion, I certainly may have become an organic farmer.

How did you ever convince me to return? You, after all, abhor gardening. Nor do you like mucking around in manure. Grow it, nay; eat it, yeah. Certainly your love of food has been important.

(Unlike our kids), you remain the most appreciative and wonderful person to cook for. My heart to you for that darling. You love fine tastes, you know good food, and, one more thing, you love great cheese.

Hannah
 **********
Dear Hannah, 

How well I remember. That time was a lot tougher than I let on. I really was a little worried you wouldn't come back. But of course you came back-after all, I'm very charming ;) .

I don't abhor gardening, but being the slave labor for my parents' garden ruined it for me. Wait- it's not like I don't help. Who built your garden beds and garden fence? [A combined effort!] Who trims and removes trees for you? [About that...]

But I do love seeing how happy your garden makes you. I've never seen someone so excited about basil or potatoes. 

I do love cheese. It's interesting comparing different methods of production and how good and how different cheese from real milk tastes. I must visit these English farms with you. Of course, my ideals of great cheese comes from my travels in France. I would love to compare those cheeses I know and love with the British counterparts...I imagine the French cheeses are somewhat stronger smelling and more pretentious.

Love, 
Evan