Also, would you know if the same dairy system that you mention above is followed by Indian dairy farmers too? Or are they producing milk without the use of hormones and antibiotics?
Thanks.

This issue is actually a good example of the amount of power a corporation can (and does) wield and how it curbs freedom instead of promoting it – to the extent of threatening small dairy farmers who wanted to label their milk rBGH-free with lawsuit. This is the same corporation that also sells Bt cotton.

I think “ghostwriter” above has already mentioned the flawed philosophical underpinnings that cause this, and while the use of fertilizers etc. was somewhat justified way back in the 50s (or so) when policy decisions regarding ensuring food security were made, the negative results in the form of loss of nutrient-rich topsoil due to monoculture farming, polluted water, polluted soil, lakes of animal shit from feedlots, massive algae bloom due to agriculture runoff etc. have started coming in and are much harder to ignore. Basically, the way US produces a lot of its food is polluting and unsustainable in the long run, more so with oil running out.

Food (and health-care) are two areas where profits should be secondary – the farmers know best how to grow crops and animals (with help from researchers and scientists), and any policies set by the government should prioritize that, instead of letting wonks or corporations (who have zero idea how and what it takes to produce food and are only interested in maximizing profits due to quarterly deadline – long-term negative effects be damned) set the tone of these policies.

How we make the transition to sustainable food production with the “free market” remains to be seen.

What I learned while growing up in India regarding food has for the most part, served me much better (and is a lot healthier) than all the scientific research done in the West regarding food (which is not to say that science is useless). I guess cultural traditions do have some value and accumulated knowledge.

I’m sure Chaitanya will have something to add.

My 2 cents:

Milk is definitely good for us. But then so is meat (white and red), wine, scotch, oil, etc. ! The trick is to consume it in the right quantities and NOT think of milk as a complete food.

Milk does not have all the nutrients our body requires in their exact same proportion. Further, nutritional requirements will vary from person to person. A body builder may require a higher proportion of protein in his/her diet than a sedentary worker like yours truly. Short distance sprinters may require more protein thana cross country runner, even though both do a lot of physical labor.

Research needs to be done into what exactly milk provides us and what it does not. And that should account for the nutrients consumed in the digestion process. That will aid us solve the “osteoporosis (hope I spelt it right) in milk-consuming individuals” conundrum.

A lot of societies live without cow’s milk. A lot of societies live without milk from any animal! The thing to understand is that milk is a valid food source, like meat, eggs, pulses, grains, vegetables, fruits and what have you. But, as I said earlier, it is NOT the complete food.

The philosophical underpinning is deeply flawed. The Western system is based on exploiting nature (in this case hurting cows with hormone injections) to enhance productivity so as to peculate other civilizations (for e.g. ours). They think of their cows as machines – to be run into the ground or bled dry – just so farmers in developing countries should not compete.

It is the same story when it comes to use of pesticides (alas we have followed their lead on this) or the use of genetically modified food – we still have time to prevent this catastrophe – but all the half-read, neo-liberated English-speaking press people love to speak for the GM Food industry. Anyone advocating organic agriculture (like me) is thought of as a Luddite Neanderthal who should go back to climbing tress. Here are a few interesting links for your reading pleasure

http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed072607a.cfm

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Agriculture/wm1738.cfm

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/wm1337.cfm

And these links are only to US farm subsidy – the Europeans are worse.

As an economist perhaps you will address – in detail – the income, production and most important ecological distortion that result from this perverted policy