Comment by vanilla-almond | Hacker News Reader

Comment by vanilla-almond | Hacker News Reader

I drink milk, but I think the strongest case against drinking cows milk is industrial-scale dairy farming. We (consumers) are to blame because we want milk as cheap as possible.

We've seen protests across Europe in the past by farmers who say they can't provide milk at such cheap prices and maintain welfare standards. Unfortunately, we consumers seem unwilling to pay for high welfare. Sure we say otherwise when asked, but our actions at the supermarket tell a different story.

Also, most consumers don't even know what conditions are like for dairy animals. In Europe, consumers smugly assume we have high welfare standards (maybe we do relative to other countries), but I was shocked to learned that some farms still tie and tether cows in small cramped indoor spaces [1]. In fact, most dairy cows will spend the majority of their life indoors rather than outside grazing on pasture. This is the price of cheap, industrial-scale agriculture.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/08/its-medi...

> We (consumers) are to blame because we want milk as cheap as possible.

So, you're not going to blame Lactalis are you ?

It's so easy for a seller to escape from any responsibility "we're just selling what consumers want !". This is fallacious because consumers buy whatever product available for sale that is closest to what they want.

Consumers don't decide how industry invests to make their product. I mean, I buy milk, cream, cheese, from a local farm, I have my own chicken and so on, but that's because I can, but I wouldn't feel like blaming people who don't and claim of having better morality or whatnot.

Just to point out how things are all connected ... the relatively affluent on up to the obscenely rich can afford to pay for "high welfare" animal food production.

If minimum wage and/or the fraction of GDP that ended up in the pockets of employees had stayed in line with (say) mid-1970s levels, I would imagine that most people could (at least choose to) afford "high welfare" animal food production.

> We (consumers) are to blame

No, the farmers are to blame. This is the kind of thing regulations solve. If we force the use of sustainable and ethical farming methods through regulation, like how we force producers to obey all other aspects of food safety and production, then the market will adjust to the new prices, whatever they may be.

Actually I think the fault mostly lies with discounters leveraging the fuck out of farmers to compete against other discounters. There's a EU directive being implemented currently that would prohibit discounters from selling below cost, and it's very necessary.

I would say the fault is with EU and its subsidies: https://m.dw.com/en/are-subsidies-driving-dairy-farmers-into...

Agriculture is a surprisingly difficult market. Part of that is an understandable desire of governments to maintain local production. Nobody wants to risk being cut-off their food supply.

The only way to make cattle farming sustainable is by doing far far less of it. Governments need to impose massive taxes on dairy and beef products in order to severely reduce their consumption. But they do the opposite and subsidise it instead, often to the point that we are throwing out viable animal products because there is too much of it.

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