Dear Reader,

Why the dairy issue? Every time we pour a drop of half & half in our coffee, eat a bite of cheese, place a pat of butter on toast or simply pour a glass of milk we are engaging in an agricultural activity. That is, for every bit of dairy we consume, there is an animal behind it that needs care and feeding, and, hopefully, land on which to wander, all managed by a farmer and his or her family.

Yet milk as a farm product is the one we most take for granted. Even though dairy animals produce their milk in natural (reproductive) cycles, milk remains on store shelves all year round. Milk comes to us in cartons, jugs or bottles, in sticks, tubs or blocks, divided into such a dizzying array of choices on the grocery aisle it loses its identity in a sea of marketing strategies.

As dairy farmers here and across the nation have watched the price for their milk plummet since last year, small dairy farmers like those in Rhode Island are struggling just to keep the farm, let alone afford upgrades to their facilities.

The price they are paid for their milk is decided by a series of convoluted pricing structures set by the Secretary of Agriculture, called the FederalMarketing Order. By 1932 the FMO price for milk was arranged in four different classes, each influenced by supply and demand, that today give no reward to the farmer who takes special care to raise a healthy herd, the herd you hope your milk comes from.

The struggle of the dairy farmer is also being felt in Europe where, in October, dairy farmers staged a large protest aimed at the European Union agriculture ministers over unfair milk pricing. A cow in attendance did her udder best by spraying riot police with raw milk.

Here in the United States industrial agriculture has also had an impact on something as basic and supposedly wholesome as milk. Aside from bovine growth hormones used to increase production in dairy cows, which in turn increases their need for antibiotics, cows raised in massive feedlots are stressed, impacting the quality of their milk, milk that makes its way into products we buy in stores. Even organic milk is not always what it seems. A good deal of the nation’s organic milk supply comes from a few concentrated large producers in theWest who ultra-pasteurize the milk, giving it a month-long shelf life to counterbalance the higher pricing that organic milk commands.

In the end, consuming milk is a choice. There are plenty of options for getting calcium into our bones without it coming from a cow but, oh, what we would miss! The many milk-based foods we love, as well as milk itself, should not be seen as inherently bad but the way in which milk is valued as a commodity should certainly be reexamined.

In Rhode Island we have the unique opportunity to support our local dairy industry through the cooperative Rhody Fresh, delivery dairies like Christiansen’s and Munroe’s, as well as dairies like Wright’s Dairy Farm and Arruda’s Dairy Farm. It comes at a small premium but one that also supports your neighbor and a way of life that, if not properly valued for what it gives back to us, may eventually cease to exist.

Right at press time I received a call from Ken Ayars, chief of Rhode Island’s Division of Agriculture who called to let me know that Rhode Island was down one more working dairy farm, bringing the number from 18 to 17.

Dig in!
Genie McPherson Trevor