This economic “union” began in World War I, when powdered milk was sent to soldiers overseas in a misguided attempt to fight malnutrition. Back then, cow’s milk and other dairy-based foods were in demand, so farmers practically upended their businesses to become part of the dairy industry, clearing crops from their farms and focusing on the exploitation of cows instead.
When WWI ended, there was a huge surplus of cow’s milk—and little demand for it. Farmers and milk processors had invested too much to turn back from large-scale production, so the government bailed them out, buying $2 million of surplus cow’s milk. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Dairy Division created campaigns to market cow’s milk with spurious claims that it was necessary for bone health. Americans were—and still are—being told by the USDA to consume cow’s milk rather than more healthful calcium sources, including kale, collards, mustard greens, turnip greens, bok choy, broccoli, tofu, and fortified plant-derived milks and juices.
By the 1980s, the USDA was spending $2 billion a year to buy surplus butter, cheese, and dried milk and store it in the 500 or so warehouses, or “caves,” that it leased around the nation. A 1982 issue of The New York Times indicated that if the dairy “products” that were in the warehouses at that time were loaded into boxcars, the train would stretch from Washington, D.C., to New York City.
Yet the government was still expected to spend between $40 million and $50 million that year alone to transport even more dairy “products” to the warehouses—plus another $40 to 50 million to store them.
So why didn’t the farmers stop forcing cows to churn out so much milk?
Because there was no limit to how much farmers could sell to the government, which was buying the surplus milk for $13.10 per hundred pounds back then. Since Congress was—and still is—receiving campaign contributions from the dairy industry, the government continued to purchase milk, so the farmers were encouraged to keep producing it.
To this day—when there’s still a surplus of cow’s milk and caring consumers are opting for plant-derived milks because they’re healthy, humane, and environmentally friendly—the dairy industry is still trying to force cow’s milk down our throats. And the government is helping. Not a day goes by when consumers aren’t exposed to promos for cow’s milk, ice cream, cheese-stuffed pizza, and other dairy-based foods.
Stay tuned for more information about who’s funding these promotions of unhealthy, inhumane dairy “products”—all while falsely claiming to be helping to create a healthier country.
