This year is finally starting to feel like the new normal has arrived. The masks are fewer, offices are more full, consumers have returned to restaurants, and kids are back in schools. But in reality, we’ll never return to where we were, and the changes in our industry are impossible not to notice.
This year, we’ve enjoyed record prices. But we’re also experiencing record costs. Dairy exports are at an all-time high, even as supply chains are less reliable than any of us have ever experienced. We’re seeing unparalleled innovation that’s helping enhance our stewardship of land and our animals, but we’re also facing increasing pressure and skepticism from a public and, in some parts of the world, from governments toward how well we’re doing as an industry on these very things. The good news is for us, as all parts of agriculture face similar problems, these challenges play to our strengths. We in dairy have a proven track record of proactively moving and establishing ourselves as a leader in meeting these challenges head on.
That doesn’t just happen. It’s because of the leadership and the vision shown by the farmers, industry professionals and the entire U.S. dairy community. This leadership is only going to become more important in the next few years, as we see even greater pressure from consumers, from customers, and government to show progress on the issues they care about. It won’t be easy. But we know that we can do it, because of the incredibly strong base we’ve built over the last 15+ years of forward leaning engagement on sustainability and climate issues. These are global challenges. But because of our foresight and engagement, we’re in a much better position than our dairy colleagues around the world.
Recently, I was in The Netherlands attending a Global Dairy Platform conference along with several dairy leaders from across Europe, Asia, and New Zealand. I spent a lot of time talking to some of the large dairy players in the world, and what struck me most was the difference in how we’re all dealing with the same challenges. For some of our counterparts, there’s almost a sense of inevitability that dairy production and consumption will decline in the face of the environmental issues before us, almost a sense of resignation and acceptance that consumers were going to consider plant-based substitutes equal to milk, acceptance that dairy products would come from a lab, acceptance that government regulations limiting not just carbon or methane, but ammonia emissions and other environmental concerns. The best that could be done, they seemed to believe, was to manage the decline.
I talked to Dutch dairy farmers wondering if it’s their farm or their neighbor’s that will have to shut down as the country phases in binding limits on ammonia emissions. One farmer I talked with wondered whether it would be his farm or his neighbors – or several neighbors – that will go out of business in the next five, 10 years, because of these ammonia limits. Those same pressures are affecting dairy and all ag production throughout Europe.
In New Zealand, farmers took to the streets to protest a carbon tax that will hit dairy very hard. Nearly half of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture. Of those, about 85% are methane emissions, much of it from dairy. That compares to about 10% of greenhouse gas emissions coming from agriculture here in the U.S., with less than 2% of total emissions from dairy. Across Europe and New Zealand, the future for dairy is being limited, and while dairy producers there are trying to play catch-up to deal with this new reality, my sense is, they don’t see a lot of options.
I don’t accept that as our industry’s future. But I do believe it’s a danger that could easily occur if we don’t keep pushing forward on our proactive efforts and do the right things. Our biggest ally is the consumer. As USDA just reported, per capita dairy consumption in this country is at the highest since 1959. That is an incredible endorsement of your hard work, and it’s come because in the U.S., some of the negative assumptions that consumers and regulators elsewhere have about dairy haven’t taken root.
But they will, if we don’t continue to prove every day, both in our accomplishments and in our actions, that dairy is part of a sustainable, innovative future of which we can all be proud. This important point is underscored in the findings in Purdue University’s Consumer Food Insights Report. Its most recent monthly survey of consumers showed the top six attributes that impact consumers’ food buying choices are, in order of importance, taste, nutrition, affordability, availability, environmental impact, social responsibility. Look at that list. Talk about a list of opportunities and challenges for dairy. It’s right there. Look at the first four. Taste, nutrition, affordability, availability. That’s what dairy is all about, and it’s why per capita consumption is at record levels of our lifetime.
Click here to see more...