How Big Data Transformed the Dairy Industry
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
Dairy cows are some of the most mistreated and unhealthy animals in the agriculture system. This push for efficiency has created a large group of animals with very little genetic diversity. They are kept on a stream of antibiotics because one bad outbreak can take down the entire group. They often develop mastitis and cancer is common by the they are 5 or 6 ("retirement age") due to poor nutrition, over-milking, and living conditions.
This kind of science really excites me, but the applications are almost always depressing and we should absolutely not be lauding squeezing out every last "inefficiency" in an animal based industry.
I live in Iowa, sorry I haven't seen the mistreatment you mention. I'm sure its a problem, any time large amounts of animals become dollars. Puppy mills, fish farms. But compared to beef cattle, dairy have it made.
I'm not even sure humans are immune. Talk about a constant stream of antibiotics, low genetic diversity, inhumane living conditions, cancer rates.
I'm honestly not trying to be preachy here as I know this isn't the appropriate venue, but this is just not an area I feel anyone should be commending for their efficiency.
> They are kept on a stream of antibiotics
This was never true on our farm. Cows would be treated if sick, but that is it. I don't even remember them being sick all that often. The biggest problems were always related to calving complications (see below).
> They often develop mastitis
This largely came down to choices made by the animal, like laying in the muck even when there's a nice fresh bed of straw nearby. No farmer wants to see a cow with mastitis, even if just for profit reasons so you always do your best to try to avoid the problem.
> The females are placed into small "igloos" with no chance for grazing or physical contact until they are old enough to reproduce.
You mean until they are old enough to feed on their own. The reason they are individualized in early life is because otherwise the stronger calves will eat all of the food and who wants to see a calf starve? Even while in the hutch ("igloo"), the calves are free to interact with the nearby calves in other hutches.
> Male dairy cows are used for veal (and I'm sure you know how that goes).
I'm not sure the general population does know how that goes. I've heard all kinds of horrific stories about how veal calves, specifically, are mistreated. The only differentiator for veal is the age of the animal, otherwise they live like any other beef calf.
> Then it's 4 or 5 years of constant pregnancy and milking until they are "spent" at the ripe ole age of 6.
I remember plenty of cows that were milked for far longer, but we definitely lost a lot during calving, and as a result of that 4-5 years probably isn't far off the average milking span. Sadly, calving is hard on the animal. To be fair, this is something humans equally struggled with until the advent of modern medicine.
>You mean until they are old enough to feed on their own. The reason they are individualized in early life is because otherwise the stronger calves will eat all of the food and who wants to see a calf starve? Even while in the hutch ("igloo"), the calves are free to interact with the nearby calves in other hutches.
No I don't. The only reason that would be an issue is if they are not drinking milk naturally from the mother. All across the Midwest are small and medium sized cattle ranches with calves of all ages getting on just fine. The biggest reason is they must be separated from the mother otherwise the farmer is losing money. And I honestly have not seen a single case where calves are free to interact with each other. They're either tied up or fenced in.
>I'm not sure the general population does know how that goes. I've heard all kinds of horrific stories about how veal calves, specifically, are mistreated. The only differentiator for veal is the age of the animal, otherwise they live like any other beef calf.
I'm actually surprised you said this because it's 100% wrong. Veal in the US is almost exclusively the male offspring of dairy cows - usually Holsteins. They are never beef breeds and their lives are extremely different. In order to get the tender meat, they are put on a formula deficient in Iron and either tied up or kept in small crates, which I have witnessed many times. This combination produces the light, tender meat veal is known for. I have a very hard time accepting you didn't know any of this having grown up on a dairy farm.
>Sadly, calving is hard on the animal. To be fair, this is something humans equally struggled with until the advent of modern medicine.
It sure is. It's a tremendous amount of stress to put on a female's body. That's the issue.
Indeed. We poured a lot of money into improving the lives of the animals through the years. Things are definitely better than it used to be for the animals. The conditions in some of these modern barns are worlds ahead of the past. Are all things perfect? Probably not, but it is a process.
> The biggest reason is they must be separated from the mother otherwise the farmer is losing money.
I do not deny that the calf is separated from the mother, but that is quite different to being individually penned up for years as you claimed. I don't know of any dairy farmer who keeps the calves individualized beyond the first month or so.
> I have a very hard time accepting you didn't know any of this having grown up on a dairy farm.
The veal we raised, once they were weaned from the milk, ate mainly grasses, and corn in their final days. The same diet we fed the beef cattle. The only real difference being that they went to market as a smaller animal. If you missed that window, they got sent to market as regular beef cattle.
There is milk-fed veal that you speak of too, but it seems to be less common in my experience. I know that some farmers do kept them tied up in small crates, but you're painting a whole industry with a small brush again. One abusive farmer doesn't mean that all farmers are abusive.
For what it is worth, I'm in Canada. Maybe the US has stricter definitions about what constitutes as veal, I don't know.
I will amend that Canada has supply management for dairy. American dairy farmers are, on the whole, far less wealthy. Perhaps that's where the discrepancy comes into play? I imagine if you cannot make ends meet, the animals will suffer. I really don't see things being nearly as bad as you make it out to be here though.
We do have a depressing lack of welfare laws for farm animals here, and that surely has a lot to do with it.
One thing I always like to point out is that we have completely stopped growing GMO soybeans on our farm because the market demanded it. Consumers have a lot of control over the actions of farmers. You really don't need legislation to start solving the problems you see, you just have to start asking for what you want changed.
The average heard size in Canada is about 60 cows and you can make a decent living with that. From what I understand the in US, 60 cows will leave you living in absolute poverty. If you cannot afford to live yourself, I expect the cows won't have much of a life either. But that's just an assumption.
It is a good question though, and especially timely as the Canadian government is seriously leaning towards scrapping the quota system entirely.
That's a fair assumption for a commercial operation. In India, small holders (2-3 cattle) are in majority & the primary use is for tilling fields. Consequently, cattle are considered & treated as family members, rather than as milk producing machines. Even if the farmer has to live frugally, he/she does not ill treat cattle.
> It is a good question though, and especially timely as the Canadian government is seriously leaning towards scrapping the quota system entirely.
Thanks for that info - will be interesting to assess the outcome if the shift happens.
If you're really concerned about the living conditions, you'd want more expensive, better quality milk.
I think we'd be better of, as a first step, ending subsidies to dairy farmers and enforcing some basic health and humane regulations. I mean, there are many dairy farms where discarded chicken meat and feces are fed to dairy cows. Here's a story about a guy feeding doughnuts and cookies. http://www.cheeseslave.com/farmer-feeds-doughnuts-and-cookie... Cows have very specialized digestive systems meant for processing grass. Even if we grant that cow's milk is a good thing for us to have, certainly it doesn't apply with diets like that.
I worked with dairy farmers with as few as 100 cows and as many as 1200. These were family farms and they cared well for the animals. Antibiotics were only used on sick cows and not as a daily regimen. I really respect those guys, most of them are far better businessmen than the tradesmen in town.
The few times that I saw animals mistreated were farmers who weren't very long for the dairy business.
I think those are actually pretty small numbers, and might not even count as CAFOs (confined animal feeding operation), right?
http://www.michigan.gov/documents/deq/wb-npdes-CAFO-rules-fi...
I know that farms much smaller than that have to abide by some of the CAFO rules such as having approved manure application plans.
Several of Michigan's larger farms use the manure to generate their own electricity.
(Of course I know Wikipedia isn't the most reliable and those specifics seem to be lacking citations)
Sources:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18194824
The second and third links talk about a study for a prostate cancer drug and a human androgen hormone. The word "milk" does not appear on either of those pages.
Please make an effort to be more careful in your citations. When one adopts the tone and form of authority, by citing links to official looking urls, people sometimes take the advice offered without fact checking. And in this case, it could cause people to stop consuming dairy and start consuming something else, with unknown effects.
edit: The P-Value for skim milk was the only one lower than the .05 significance level. So even in the cited study, there does not appear to be a correlation between whole, 2%, or 1% milk with acne.
Assuming that the cited articles actually showed causation, it would have to be a pretty significant risk to say not consuming it would be the best choice. It's a cheap and widely available source of protein and fat. Not everyone has readily available access to food, not to mention the cost of preparing and cooking it. It is, however, annoying that the price has gone up by about 22% in the last 10 years. (http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/surveymost?ap)
>It is, however, annoying that the price has gone up by about 22% in the last 10 years.
No, it's really not that annoying. Many of the other foods on that list have undergone similar increases and that 22% hasn't even kept up with inflation. This is also despite the fact that the dairy industry is pretty heavily subsidized. I'm far more annoyed that the price hasn't gone up more to reflect the true cost of dairy.
"The site is a work in progress and will contain the history of the link between milk and acne, links to scientific articles both published and unpublished, thoughts on the mechanisms involved in the production of acne, and treatment protocols I have used with success in managing thousands of acne patients in over thirty years of dermatology consulting practice."
You are drinking lots of pregnant female cow hormones when you drink milk, eat cheese or butter (which is even worse than plain milk as the DHT is already converted). You're just jacking up your DHT levels and that's like turning on an oil spigot. It is a major player in acne and baldness in men.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15203374
"In conclusion, we found a positive association between milk consumption and prostate cancer."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15069693
"We observed a 2-fold higher risk of the serous ovarian cancer subtype among those in the highest category of lactose consumption compared to the lowest
"For each 11-gram increase in lactose consumption (the approximate amount in one glass of milk), we observed a 20% increase in risk of serous cancers
"Women who consumed one or more servings of skim or low-fat milk daily had a 32% higher risk of any ovarian cancer and a 69% higher risk of serous ovarian cancer compared to women consuming 3 or less servings monthly
"Our findings provide some support for the hypothesis that lactose intake increases risk of epithelial ovarian cancer."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9224182
"Women who drank two or more glasses of milk per day had relative risks of 1.45 for hip fracture and 1.05 for forearm fracture when compared with women consuming one glass or less per week."
Like any mammals cows only produce milk when they have babies. To keep their milk flowing cows are impregnated constantly. When the babies are born they are taken away from their mothers. Male babies are slaughtered. Dairy cows are also slaughtered at a young age when their milk production drops.
Many people mistakenly thought no animals are harmed in milk production. That is not true.
The free market rewards the up side of closely related species but does not cost you anything for the potential catastrophe. Day to day the probability of a catastrophic disease is near 0, but in the very long term it is near certain. Our free markets have no smart way of pricing that kind of stuff.
That's why we've already lost several varieties of banana to diseases.
Many wild, seed packet bananas exist, but all (as far as I know?) bananas that we eat have no seeds and are actually all clones. Thus they are all under the extinction by disease threat.
Someone could in theory continually keep developing new strains of bananas in case of future diseases. Practically however there is no profit in that. You could argue a charity or NGO should do stuff like this.
Note that the Gros Michel isn't extinct. It's still grown as a boutique item. But the blight is apparently persistent in fields, and thus it can't be grown in quanitity without huge risk to the plantation.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/01/10/110110fa_fact_...
So true. Ireland's devastating "potato famine" was another example of the catastrophe that can result from free-market-drive overdependence on a single monoculture --- in this case the "lumper" potato variety, which was susceptible to the Phytophthora infestans blight --- with no genetic diversity [1]. It's estimated that the famine led to the death or emigration (in roughly equal numbers) of some 20% of the island's population [2].
(One of my grandmothers was first-generation Irish-American; I remember her telling stories of the famine that she'd heard passed down in her family.)
[1] http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/agriculture...
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)#Blight_i...
That said, the definition of big data used by this article doesn't strike me as what I would think of as big data. Based on what it says, the dairy industry was changed by analysis and data collection but nothing that couldn't be stored on your typical phone. The article hints at big data (via greater genetic analysis) transforming the dairy industry in the future, but the massive changes in cow DNA so far are seemingly due to "small" data.
This confusion of big data with just solid analysis and decision-making happens a lot, but does a good job of highlighting how much progress there is to be made in using data to drive decisions (independent of how much data we use).