As a cheese enthusiast and blogger and the author of a yogurt cookbook, I’m never happy to see dairy foods get slammed. Cows have sustained us for millennia, yet they are increasingly under scrutiny for their role in climate change. The New York Times recently published a Q&A-style feature on the environmental impact of our food choices, and I’m sure the takeaway for many readers was, “Eat less cheese.” Some people will go further and ditch dairy foods entirely. I wondered how the many progressive dairy farmer/cheesemakers I know are grappling with these issues so I reached out to one of the industry’s wise men, Andy Hatch.
Andy is co-owner of Uplands Cheese Company in Dodgeville, Wisconsin—two families farming 300 acres, practicing rotational grazing and making cheese from the raw milk of their own grass-fed cows. It doesn’t get much purer than that. Pleasant Ridge Reserve and Rush Creek Reserve, the only cheeses they make, are superb. The former has won the American Cheese Society’s Best of Show three times, an astonishing feat.
I asked Andy for his take on the Times story. I was expecting a robust defense of responsible dairy farming but that’s not quite what I got. Here’s his e-mailed reply, lightly edited:
“This is a very important issue for the dairy industry, but unfortunately the conversation is muddled by the fact that everyone seems to cite different data, which makes it hard to understand where things actually stand.
“The 14.5% figure cited by the Times (livestock’s contribution to global greenhouse gases) comes from the UN, so you'd be tempted to trust it, but it groups American livestock farms together with all other livestock farms in the world, many (most?) of which are far less efficient. It doesn't seem fair to lump a modern, pasture-based dairy on fertile Midwestern soil together with a couple of cows picking their way through a village in India.
“The EPA claims that the American livestock industry contributes 10.5% of the country's GHG, with dairy cattle contributing 1.7%. But ask Google that question and plantbasednews.com will tell you that animal agriculture contributes 87%.
Two-family farm: Hatch (left) and family with partners, the Mericka family
“I'm determined to put some language on our website explaining how our perennial pastures act as a carbon sink, offsetting the emissions we generate through our cows, cheesemaking and transportation. But I haven't found a reliable way to calculate those figures for our farm, and every time I dig into someone else's calculations it looks like they're conveniently cherry picking and/or ignoring data. That certainly seems to be the case with some of the new businesses selling plant-based dairy alternatives. They toss out such alarming figures that even respectable media can't resist the bait.
“It feels increasingly urgent to get a grip on the data and make a plan to improve. And we need to get better at talking about this issue. American farmers are often defensive and reactionary toward these types of ‘urban’ or ‘elite’ grievances. Fairly or not, it feels like we're being battered in the media without a chance to highlight the advances we're making.
“I realize that perennial pasture and methane digesters won't generate as many clicks as an Impossible Burger, and they certainly aren't raising millions in venture capital, but they are probably more realistic solutions for improving planetary health, human health and rural economies.
“I do think it's encouraging that the public and the dairy industry are developing a sense of urgency about climate change. I just hope that cooler heads will prevail when we sort through the true impacts of different food systems and start to measure the viable alternatives.
“There are good signs out there, like the American Cheese Society’s four-part webinar on this issue, and also some bigger-picture industry work, like the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy’s Net Zero Initiative, which has a goal of GHG neutrality by 2050.”
Personally—Janet here—I’m still eating cheese. (That’s a Cheddar experiment from Jasper Hill in the top image.) And I’m not giving up yogurt. I think supporting responsible dairy farmers and cheesemakers as they learn how to minimize their environmental impact makes more sense, and is more practical, than advocating for the end of animal husbandry. That’s my take and please share yours in the Comments section below.