April 2010 Archive for On the Udder Hand

First it was “milk.”  Now, the problem is “yogurt,” and “cheese,” and even “ice cream” with no cream, or milk, or any dairy ingredient.

That’s why it’s time to renew the campaign to force the Food and Drug Administration to crack down on the misuse of dairy terms on products that have no relation whatsoever to real dairy products.  You can read more about it in today’s USA Today. 

On Thursday, the National Milk Producers Federation sent a letter of complaint pointing out multiple examples of these phony dairy goods using dairy terms they’re not supposed to.  You can see illustrations posted at the new Facebook page that we’ve created specifically for this campaign: http://www.facebook.com/theydontgotmilk.

This is not the first time we’ve been down this path.  Way back in 2000, NMPF sent a similar complaint, and at the time, warned that if the FDA did nothing, we’d see a growing proliferation of faux dairy items.  The response from FDA:  [crickets chirping in background].

So it’s time for a second go round.  The law says milk means “the lacteal secretion from a dairy animal.”  Beans don’t make that cut, nor do nuts, or rice, or hemp.  But they all have grabbed the milk label for their own.  And this isn’t bashing soy beans.  Farmers need them…for their cows.  But if the beans are to be made into a white liquid form, it should be called something other than milk (or yogurt, or cheese, etc.). 

If you think FDA should do something about this, there’s a form on the NMPF website to write a letter to the FDA Commissioner:  http://nmpf.org/fda-form.

Perhaps I’m on a hot streak…or at least subject to a warming period.  Regardless, the other hoof dropped today, figuratively and literally speaking, in the whole issue of the contribution of global dairy production to  overall greenhouse gas inventories.

My previous post (and yes, it’s a bit of a broken MP3 file, so no more on the topic for a while after this) focused on the huge ozone hole in the 18% figure that the United Nations claimed several years ago was the livestock contribution globally to greenhouse gas emissions and, ultimately, the role of cows, sheep, pigs, and goats to global warming.  Today, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization issued its reassessment of the dairy portion of that number.  Presumably, after they’re done with dairy, they’ll parse out the impact of the other four-legged brethren.

And the result:  2.7%.

But wait, that’s not the whole story.  Two important caveats:  first, when you add in the beef and leather contribution of dairy cattle farming, the portion rises to 4%.  Dairy cattle, as it turns out, are mighty productive throughout their life cycle, and then they continue to feed and clothe people afterwards.

The second factor, and the real news, is that the U.S. dairy sector is actually far more efficient when compared to dairy production in most other places.  No surprise there, but it was gratifying to have the U.N. admit that modern farming is a better user of energy, and results in a lower carbon output per gallon of milk, then in other places where husbandry practices aren’t as advanced.  (You can find the regional breakout in Seciton 4 here in the full report). Yes, the Prius is more efficient than the Yugo. 

Now, even in spite of this unequivocal evidence, we’re still seeing the same old crap out of the veganazi crowd.  Check out this Earth-Day rant from PETA’s Ingrid Newkirk, where now, somehow, she’s convinced herself that livestock production is fully HALF of all greenhouse gas production.  I guess some wild-eyed advocate needs to hike the number still higher, since the experts at the U.N. are headed the other direction.  It’s their version of the big lie:  repeated often enough, but mostly, loudly enough, some will believe you.

Which goes to show you that the animal rights crowd is scared now of losing an issue that they long have hoped would give them traction:  cutting out cheeseburgers will save the Earth, and lots of cows in the process.  Even though that’s not their agenda, it was a convenient message to use.  Or it used to be, prior to Earth Day 2010.

Sorry, folks, time to move on from that falsehood.  There's nothing more to see here.  Or at least if you want to reduce the footprint of what you eat, buy American cheese next time.

It’s only right that I make this post on April Fool’s day, because, ironically, the topic is a deadly serious one that has been fooled with for way too long:  the relationship between livestock production and greenhouse gases.  Now, thankfully, the truth – or at least more of it – is finally coming to light.

For several years, we’ve seen what I call the “18% albatross” tossed about very publicly like it’s the 11^th etched-in-stone commandment from Mt. Sinai.   What this figure refers to is a finding by the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization that fully 18% of all the greenhouse gas emissions globally come from the production of livestock products, i.e. meat, milk and eggs. 

Those looking to bludgeon production agriculture (and it’s a motley crew of vegans, environmental radicals, anti-modern farming Luddites, quick-buck marketers,  and others) have seized on that 18% figure, and asserted that  if you want to stop global warming, all you have to do is put down the pizza and eat soy cheese.  This has become a convenient message to appeal to those wanting to pay lip service to fighting global warming:  namely, that while getting a Prius or biking to work may be too much of a hassle, enjoying a “meatless Monday” will achieve the same net effect for the globe.

Those of us who actually bothered to review the FAO’s report, ominously titled “Livestock’s Long Shadow,” have understood that the study’s methodology was rife with flaws.  The biggest was that modern farming in the U.S. and other developed nations was put in the same camp as subsistence-style farming in under developed countries.  In other words, a big reason behind the 18% figure was that the clearing of forests in the Third World, which does generate more carbon emissions, was being counted against the emissions tab of farms here in the U.S., where farm acreage has been flat or declining, and carbon sinks are managed with much greater care.   The U.N. was painting with the same broad brush the much less efficient farms elsewhere, with far more productive farms and ranches here.  And they made absolutely no effort to distinguish between the two. 

Now, an air scientist at the University of California-Davis, Frank Mitloehner, has published a paper calling attention to the sloppy work of the FAO.  His point is that the UN’s scientific body was comparing apples to rutabagas in carving up the pie chart about which sectors contribute the most to greenhouse gases.  Only for agriculture did the FAO do a full lifecycle analysis.  In other words, the FAO calculated the carbon footprint of every activity that goes into producing the meat and cheese for the pizza, including fertilizing the land to grow the feed to feed the livestock to make the pepperoni and mozzarella.  However, the FAO, in looking at the impact of transportation’s carbon footprint, only looked at the fossil fuels burned to move vehicles from point A to point B.  Extracting and refining oil, mining the metal to make cars, the forestry involved in producing rubber tires…none of that lifecycle was part of the equation for transportation.  No wonder livestock seemed to be more carbon-intensive.

Even more shocking than the media actually reporting on Mitloehner’s work, is the fact that the FAO basically agrees with him!  They are now admitting that their comparison between different sources of greenhouse gases was so far off that they now have to go back to the computers and calculate a new set of ratios.  Said Pierre Garber of the FAO: "It's a weakness that we were aware of the issue when we used it."

I have no hopes that those who evangelize about a “low-carbon diet” will change the menu as a result of the facts coming out.  Their agenda was always more about politics than science.  And let me be clear that just because U.S. dairy farms are relatively much more carbon-efficient than counterparts in other countries, doesn’t mean there is not room for improvement in that area…there certainly is, and we’re working on it.

But at least now, with a new commitment from the FAO for a fuller accounting of the most relevant data, this effort to fool with the facts should reach its end.