Vermont has lost 400 plus dairy farms since 2008, and animal milk prices have declined nearly 40 percent since 2014 during which Americans’ per capita consumption of animal milk dropped 10 percent.
So, what’s a dairy farmer to do? The answer: transition to growing plants from which healthful, cruelty-free, and environmentally friendly milks can be made — plants like soy, oats, hemp, and peas already grown in Vermont.
Instead of supporting a declining industry, the government can help dairy farmers shift to these crops, the future of milk. Indeed, the plant-based milk market was up 9 percent in 2018 after increasing 61 percent between 2012 and 2017. Plant-based milks now outsell organic cows’ milk.
From 1995 to 2017, Vermont dairy farmers received $123 million in federal subsidies. Such future subsidies should cover all aspects of dairy farmers’ transition to raising milk crops, including funds for technical assistance.
Moreover, consuming animal products, including dairy, is now known to play a part in many diseases, including breast and prostate cancers, heart disease, diabetes, arthritis and osteoporosis.
In addition, it is widely acknowledged by respected climate scientists that animal agriculture drives global warming, more so than all transportation combined.
Finally, dairy farming is brutal to cows, who are serially impregnated to continue lactation, then, after short lives, are slaughtered. Meanwhile, their babies, stolen from them at birth, suffer the same fate or are killed for veal after a few months of agonizing confinement.
Help farmers end dairy for a better future.
Jack and Meg Hurley
Claremont, N.H., June 1
