2021 WWF / DMI ‘Net Zero’ report inflated GHG baseline for total U.S. milk production

Posted on February 25, 2021 by Agmoos

By Sherry Bunting, Farmshine, Feb. 26, 2021

EAST EARL, Pa. – At a time when dairy producers are in the fight of their lives to prove how sustainable they already are in providing nutrient-dense milk and beef from the much-maligned bovine, they can ill-afford publication of overblown climate data on total U.S. milk production. And yet…

Dairy producers have unknowingly paid to applaud, promote and contribute to inflated baseline greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions data via their own national dairy checkoff.

The Jan. 27 report, produced by DMI’s former MOU partner World Wildlife Fund (WWF), established a GHG baseline that has been confirmed and admitted as being mathematically wrong by an order of magnitude — 10 times greater than reality.

So egregious is the mathematical error inflating dairy’s baseline GHG emissions, that the entire WWF / DMI Net Zero Initiative ‘Dairy Scale for Good’ case study is now questionable in the significance of its reductions because the significance of the starting-point — the ‘problem’ — is overblown.

Since receiving the DMI press release and copy of the 14-page white paper on Feb. 1, we have been reviewing it. The WWF Markets Institute ‘white paper’ entitled An Environmental and Economic Path Toward Net Zero Dairy Farm Emission” has been widely promoted by DMI.

Its case-study model was concerning to us initially because of its narrow representation of comparable dairy farms and grand claims about what is needed for large farms to be “net zero in five years” and selecting pilot farms for the industry to prove-out the model.

Yes, the report was produced by WWF, but in a recent Pa. Dairy Summit breakout session on “What dairy checkoff has done for you lately,” DMI president Barb O’Brien confirmed that the WWF report is being promoted because it supports the Net Zero Initiative launched by DMI’s Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy.

More importantly, she said the report is a “spreadsheet exercise” that will now be piloted on large farms by Dairy Scale for Good executive director Caleb Harper to see if the exercise can be “proved out.” An exercise, mind you, that has inflated the significance of the problem it is purporting to solve.

In the same “What has dairy checkoff done for you lately” session at Dairy Summit, O’Brien said the data for the WWF white paper came from DMI input!

This emperor has no clothes. This dog doesn’t walk. This math does not “add up.”

We are talking about the math that established the baseline GHG for all U.S. milk production used to determine the significance of the reduction from the ‘Net Zero’ dairy case study, a 3000-cow Fair Oaks-style dairy, that does not represent reality for many large and small dairies in various geographies. But at the same time overblows the level of the problem everyone else contributes to.

We weren’t the only ones struggling to make sense of the WWF / DMI white paper. A Pennsylvania dairy producer did the math using his bulk tank calibration conversions and brought the “immense blunder” to Farmshine’s attention.

He was concerned about what this means for all dairy farms, stating in an email: “Why would anyone set a specific reduction amount when it can be demonstrated that the starting amount is wrong? DMI may wish to partner with someone with better math skills.”

The producer who wished to remain anonymous pointed out to us in his email – and we agree – that DMI may want to get their facts straight with a Net Zero Initiative that shows this level of baseline blunder. In fact, as the producer observes: “If the objective (as indicated in the WWF report) is for a 10% reduction from the inflated number, then hallelujah! The EPA numbers show a 90% reduction (already — across all milk production).”

Could the inflated GHG baseline have been intentional? After all, that inflated number is instrumental in bolstering the significance of a prescribed ‘case study’ reduction for which pilot farms are being selected to ‘prove out’.

An inflated baseline harms all dairy farms because it does not reflect the truth about how small the GHG emissions really are – already — for all milk produced on all U.S. dairy farms, under sustainable dairy farm conditions, right now!

In fact, when the Pa. dairy farmer who alerted us to the math error supplied his figuring for the CO2 equivalent (CO2e), his figures put the inflation error at 8.6 times greater than reality.

We sent a media inquiry asking GHG expert Dr. Frank Mitloehner of University of California-Davis CLEAR Center to review the WWF report and let us know what we might be missing in our calculations.

Dr. Mitloehner agreed that the starting point for GHG emissions in the WWF / DMI report was off by “an order of magnitude”.

We asked him for his expert review and on Wednesday, we received a copy of a letter Dr. Mitloehner sent to WWF. In it, Mitloehner references the white paper’s value of 2.3T pounds (trillion pounds) of GHGs as the emissions from total U.S. milk production (page 7 of the WWF white paper).

“When I went over your calculations, I noticed some potential errors. My own estimate arrived at GHG emissions that are about 10 times lower than the number you reported,” Mitloehner wrote in his letter to WWF.

“Assuming the conversion of the annual milk production in 2018, using Thoma’s equation, into kg fat-and-protein corrected milk (FPCM) and then changing to gallons of FPMC, my calculated values come out to be 287,453,374,279 (287 billion) pounds (not 2.3 trillion pounds),”

GHG expert Dr. Mitloehner writes. “Using GHG emissions of 10.6 lb CO2e per gallon FPCM, the total GHG come out to 2.87453E+11 lbs CO2e. To simplify the number using the Tera unit prefix, the GHG would be 0.287T pounds CO2e, which differs significantly from the aforementioned value (in the WWF white paper) of 2.3T pounds.”

In his letter, Mitloehner emphasized that the WWF / DMI report was “very informative and points toward solutions that are attainable and scalable, both of which are considerations desperately needed as we look at feeding people in a sustainable manner.”

However, he adds, “I do worry that if the calculations are incorrect, it could lead to misinformation and confusion.”

Along with a copy of his letter to WWF, Dr. Mitloehner included in his email reply to Farmshine the WWF response thanking him for bringing it to their attention.

“There is indeed an error and we are in the process of fixing it and will have an updated PDF soon and will share it with you, and we will fix the links on the website,” wrote Katherine Devine, director of business case development for WWF Markets Institute.

Once again, a climate-focused NGO with global goals against animal agriculture overblows GHG emissions from cattle, in this case dairy cattle. But this time, it happened within the full purview of mandatory producer-funded dairy checkoff.

The reason this is a big deal is that it is being used to set policy. The DMI and WWF press releases point to this report as being based on “stakeholder” data that can “demonstrate what is possible with the right practices, incentives and policies within five years.”

For the four weeks, this WWF report has been applauded and promoted by DMI, using case study data that was contributed by DMI.

The question now is how did this happen and what will the retraction look like?

Will anyone stand up for the sustainability of dairy farms as they are – today – for an accurate baseline of their real contribution to GHG emissions, especially per unit of nutrition provided? Where is logic in the overall equation?

Dr. Mitloehner indicated in his email reply that the overblown GHG baseline does not completely jeopardize the paper’s ideas about strategies that can position dairy as a climate solution. However, when the starting math is off by 10 times the true amount, it becomes obvious the larger truth is that dairy is a small emitter and should already be paid for so-called ‘ecosystem services.’ Why is checkoff not pounding that message?

While dairy farms across the U.S. should be applauded and promoted for the reality of how small their emissions are while producing nutritious food for all of us – already – every day, DMI got its focus set on spreadsheet modeling to tell one story when the truth is they could have used accurate numbers to tell a better story.

Instead, the baseline GHG math error undermines the current sustainable performance of all dairy production while putting on a pedestal the Net Zero model based on a 3000-cow Fair Oaks-style dairy with no heifers on site, 80% of forages grown on site, a ration that is 70% forage, and a methane digester mix made up of more than 50% co-digestion of other waste streams.

In fact, some producers of similar size who have inquired about this model, have hit brick walls in having their sustainable practices even considered to show levels of reduction. No wonder! The starting math for the WWF / DMI model is inflated and banks on that inflation to achieve the “significant” reduction in farmgate pounds of CO2 equivalent (CO2e).

While the math is muddy, the problem here is clear. Cattle as contributors to climate change continue to get a black eye by those inside and outside the industry overblowing the problem to push a marketing agenda that fits a global transformation narrative.

(POSTCRIPT NOTE: Just this morning after Farmshine went to press, we notice the PDF file at the WWF link (previously called ‘version 9’) has been quietly replaced with a file noted in its name as ‘v.10’. In it, on page 7, the total U.S. milk production GHG baseline of 268 billion pounds CO2e now appears where 2.3 trillion pounds once stood. No other change or discussion. We’ll be following up to do comparisons of how the smaller baseline impacts the significance of sweeping transformation, including calculations per unit of nutrition vs. other foods in next week’s Farmshine.)

Connecting dots:

— The January 27, 2021 WWF white paper uses a Fair Oaks-style 3000-cow Net Zero dairy case study. The WWF report was produced by the WWF Markets Institute and was written by WWF Markets Institute senior vice president Jason Clay, Ph.D.

— Clay heads the WWF Markets Institute Thought Leader group. According to the WWF Markets Institute website, the Thought Leader group members include DMI Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy Sustainability Alliance chairman Mike McCloskey of Fair Oaks fame, along with May 2020 DMI hire Caleb Harper serving as Dairy Scale for Good executive director.

— Harper started with DMI a few weeks after his departure from the MIT Media Lab under a cloud of press reports raising questions about aspects of donations, performance and environmental compliance within his digital food research project at MIT. For three years prior to being hired by DMI, Harper served on the board of directors for New Harvest, an organization that supports research and promotion of cell-cultured fake animal protein with the tagline ‘meat, milk and eggs without animals.’

— According to a Sept. 2019 Chronicles of Higher Education article, Harper’s father Steve was a grocery executive, senior vice-president of marketing and fresh product development and procurement from 1993 to 2010 for the H-E-B supermarket chain in Texas and northern Mexico and stayed on part-time through 2012 before retiring.

— During that time, H-E-B became the first and longstanding partner of Mike and Sue McCloskey when they were dairying in New Mexico and founded Select Milk Producers. Sue explained this in her presentation at the 2020 Pennsylvania Dairy Summit, that the H-E-B alliance was instrumental and painted a picture of how it progressed to dairy’s future as seen by DMI’s Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy and its food industry partners, with Mike serving as chair of the Sustainability Alliance.

— According to a June 15, 2014 Houston Chronicle article, the McCloskeys worked with H-E-B, supplying their milk and in 1996 producing Mootopia, the ultrafiltered milk H-E-B store brand and pre-cursor to fairlife, now solely owned by Coca Cola.

— During a February 2021 zoom presentation at the 2021 Pa. Dairy Summit, DMI’s vice president of sustainability Karen Scanlon confirmed that DMI had an MOU partnership with WWF from the inception of the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy in 2008-09 and that this partnership opened doors with companies on shared priorities over the past decade. The MOU between DMI and WWF expired in 2019 and was not renewed, but Scanlon confirmed that a close relationship and exchange of information continues.

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Gates et. al. peddle fake food, climate propaganda; Guarding real food ID will be critical

Posted on February 25, 2021 by Agmoos

Bill Gates is pictured here in a Jan. 27, 2021 screenshot talking about carbon markets during the World Economic Forum Davos Agenda 21 livestream. A massive land grab is underway at the same time as this push toward ‘synthetic animal protein’ and as the WEF and UN goals of 30 x 30 are implemented. Big tech billionaires, like Gates the single largest owner of U.S. farmland, are heavily invested in ‘synthetic animal protein’ (otherwise known as ‘lab-garbage’). WEF screenshot by Sherry Bunting

By Sherry Bunting, Farmshine, Feb. 26, 2021

EAST EARL, Pa. — Bill Gates gave hair-raising interviews last week with the Feb. 16th release of his new book: How to Avoid a Climate Disaster. In it, Gates lays out what he says it will take to eliminate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to ‘save the planet’.

Grabbing headlines is the Microsoft founder and software developer’s proclamation that ‘rich’ nations should move to 100% synthetic animal protein, while ‘poor’ nations, like Africa, can keep consuming animal-sourced proteins — if they reduce animal GHGs and environmental footprint by “merging-in” the meat and milk genetics and other technologies that have made U.S. cattle herds so productive.

Specifically, in a published interview with MIT Technology Review, Gates was asked: “Do you believe plant-based and lab-grown meats could be the full solution to the protein problem globally?”

Gates replied: “No, I don’t think the poorest 80 countries will be eating synthetic meat. I do think all rich countries should move to 100% synthetic beef. You can get used to the taste difference, and the claim is they’re going to make it taste even better over time. Eventually, that ‘green premium’ is modest enough that you can sort of change the (behavior of) people or use regulation to totally shift demand.”

That’s a mouthful.

Gates laments the “politics” of animal-sourced foods being a challenge for his fake-food-based climate goals and investments. “There are all these bills that say it’s got to be called, basically, ‘lab garbage’ to be sold,” Gates said. “They don’t want us to use the beef label.”

He goes on in the interview to explain why poor countries will continue to animal-source protein.

“For Africa and other poor countries, we’ll have to use animal genetics to dramatically raise the amount of beef per emissions for them. Weirdly,” says Gates in the MIT interview, “the U.S. livestock, because they’re so productive, the emissions per pound of beef are dramatically less than emissions per pound in Africa. And as part of the (Bill and Melinda Gates) Foundation’s work, we’re taking the benefit of the African livestock, which means they can survive in heat, and crossing-in the monstrous productivity both on the meat side and the milk side of the elite U.S. lines.”

Here’s the thing. A month before his book release, Gates made headlines as “the man who is about to change the way America farms.” In January, the 2020 Land Report 100 featured Gates as “America’s leading farmland owner with 242,000 acres of productive farmland in more than a dozen states.”

According to the Land Report map, Gates’ swaths of farmland, amassed through front-company Cascade Investments, are located mainly near water and ports across 19 states.

Gates is also a founding member of an investor group (Leading Harvest), setting a sustainability standard for over 2 million farming acres in 22 states and another 2 million in 7 countries, according to the Land Report.

Furthermore, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (separate from Cascade Investments and Breakthrough Ventures) has a farmland initiative called Gates Ag One, based in St. Louis. According to the St. Louis Business Journal, its focus is research to help farms in low- and middle-income countries adapt to climate change by becoming “more productive, resilient and sustainable.”

The Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV) investment fund recently changed its website, but the strategies for agriculture and food production are still clear when clicking through tabs. Here’s just the tip of the iceberg. BEV website screenshot by Sherry Bunting

Gates also chairs the investment fund called Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV), mentioned in various ‘fake-meat’ and ‘fake-dairy’ articles published in Farmshine over the past three years.

The BEV fund is mentioned throughout Gates’ new book as a ‘philanthropic’ fund with a climate strategy. Digging into the website, one sees the fund’s climate investments described as “patient, risk-tolerant capital” that will recoup return on investment years down the road once the global supply chains, government policies, and other strategies move consumers toward the various sector outcomes the BEV billionaires are investing in.

The BEV investor list includes significant interests based in China; Democratic party candidates and/or donors like George Soros, Tom Steyer, and Michael Bloomberg; big tech billionaires like Gates, along with Mark Zuckerburg, founder of Facebook, and Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.

The two-pronged approach to animal protein in Gates’ book reflects the two-pronged investments of Gates, BEV, Leading Harvest and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. On the personal and fund investment side, Gates and friends have put billions of dollars into ‘replacement ag systems’ featuring fake-animal-protein for ‘rich’ countries, while on the foundation side, the focus is on research for efficient animal ag systems in poor countries.

In fact, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – which has endeared itself to Big Ag by supporting biotech research for developing countries — was among 11 top-level sponsors in the $100,000-plus donation category for the American Farm Bureau Federation’s virtual convention in January.

During the 2021 convention, Farm Bureau president Skippy Duvall and Land O’Lakes CEO Beth Ford — together — provided a joint keynote discussion under the ‘stronger together’ 2021. Ford spoke of Land O’Lakes’ 2020 partnership with Microsoft to build an “artificial intelligence” ag-tech platform to automatically gather data from farms and trade carbon credits. The discussion ended with a focus on climate-smart technology and a more “inclusive” advocacy platform less cluttered by production identity labels.

For his part, Duvall stated that, “There’s room in the marketplace for everyone, every type of production — organic, conventional, plant-based meat, whatever it might be — there’s enough room in the market for all of us,” he said. “We have to stop throwing ourselves under the bus and work together as one united family.”

This sentiment dovetails with the global food transformation agenda of companies and investors wanting to mix-match-and-blend in a way that melts-away protein identities in favor of planetary diet standards, labels and symbols. Walmart’s director of sustainability talked about this during a World Economic Forum virtual event reported in Farmshine in January, and it is showing up in Walmarts today with big name frozen entrées in lookalike packaging, featuring BE’F, CHICK’N and DAI’Y. How clever.

On the fake-animal-protein investments, Gates and friends are working with global mainline agriculture companies like Cargill, Tyson, ConAgra and ADM, as well as global food supply chains like PepsiCo, Nestle, Unilever, and Coca Cola, along with ‘replacement’ plant-based and cell-cultured fake-meat and fake-dairy manufacturers like Beyond Meat, Impossible Foods, Memphis Meats, BioPrint, and Perfect Day.

All of this ‘replacement’ or ‘alternative’ ag push is setting the stage for a massive land grab to meet the 30 by 30 executive order of President Biden that dovetails with United Nations goals to have 30% of U.S. and global lands in conservation protection by 2030. That would double the current 15%.

With billions in ‘patient capital’ invested, Gates and friends want to see U.S. consumers ‘herded’ toward the ‘herdless’ imposter-foods they’ve invested in.

The USDA-HHS Dietary Guidelines have the facilitating low-fat diets positioned and ready. The FDA Nutrition Innovation Strategy is a multi-year effort underway to modernize standards of identity and develop a universal ‘healthy’ symbol for ‘approved’ foods.

Meanwhile, Gates and friends are pushing for polices and pricing that shift diets more quickly from the ‘climate’ side. For example, wholesale boneless wing and tender prices, as well as beef, are rising rapidly (but not to producers). This effectively narrows the gap between real and fake to help with the transition. Even the dairy industry is moving to ‘dual purpose’ processing.

Digesting Gates’ book interviews, hearing him talk about carbon markets during a World Economic Forum Davos Agenda 21 livestream, and seeing the ‘who’s who’ board of the BEV investment fund – it is clear Gates and friends are politically well-positioned to push policies that can shift diets based on their investments.

They are also getting help from within the animal-sourced food industries to corral Gen Z as ‘agents of change’ that will embrace these China-sourced pea-protein concentrates and lab-created franken-foods as they scale up across household name brands. In its recent joint-venture announcement with Beyond Meat, PepsiCo admitted their alternative snack and beverage rollouts must be “effortless” so consumers don’t have to think about making the “right choices for the planet.”

Food transformation is unfolding rapidly as Big Ag, Big Food, Big Tech, Big Money players align with governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and globalized supply chains.

To affirm the identity of real, local, U.S.-produced animal-sourced foods from farms will require a direct appeal to consumers and accountability for industry leaders and policymakers.

Overblown climate propaganda about dairy and livestock fuel policies that gradually undermine food production identity. Gates is not a food fortune-teller, but rather he is fixing to be a food fortune-maker believing he and his billionaire big tech cronies can ‘software program’ food and behavior to enrich their own outcomes.

We need to follow the money and wake up the public to see the garbage the elites are selling for what it really is. Some of us are ready to pick this food identity hill to die on.

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DMI’s WWF connection

Posted on February 25, 2021 by Agmoos

This DMI-funded ‘Sustainability’ timeline includes some of the proprietary partnerships and ‘non-profit’ organizations under the DMI umbrella, as well as supply chain and NGO alignments. It has been updated from the one that ran in the May 10, 2020 edition of Farmshine. *Compiled by Sherry Bunting*

By Sherry Bunting, Farmshine, February 19, 2021

HARRISBURG, Pa. — A question dairy farmers have long asked their dairy checkoff leaders pertains to the history and details of DMI’s relationship with WWF. That question was finally answered during a “What has dairy checkoff done for you lately?” session at the virtual 2021 Pennsylvania Dairy Summit last week.

There were many parts to this more than two-hour session where submitted questions were also fielded spanning everything from sustainability, Net Zero Initiative and FARM program to youth wellness, hunger channel coordination, nutrition science and dietary guidelines, to the supply chain and NGO partnerships and social media investments that have built dairy checkoff into today’s business-to-business model that views itself as the ‘gateway’ to trust so that farmers can continue to farm and “grow dairy” as compared with past promotion and education strategies aimed directly to consumers.

Last week, we learned that the partnership between Dairy Management Inc. (DMI) and World Wildlife Fund (WWF, also known as Worldwide Fund for Nature), goes all the way back 12 to 13 years to DMI’s formation of the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy. We learned that WWF helped design the Smart Tool collecting farm environmental data through the FARM program. We learned that blended products are the future and that manufacturing plants will become “dual purpose” to create beverages with milk in them vs. milk bottling, per-se. We learned that checkoff invests farmer funds in working with the middle of the supply chain to make new products that are focused on meeting consumer changes in the future.

We learned so much that this is part one of a three-part series. This week, we focus on the Net Zero Initiative and the DMI / WWF connection.

A picture emerged from the discussion of how WWF and DMI have worked together to transform dairy promotion, to set sustainability parameters, to work on the very ‘Smart Tool’ that is now gathering dairy farmer environmental, energy use and emissions data via the FARM program, and placed DMI into the very food transformation committees of the upcoming United Nations food summit sponsored by the World Economic Forum (Great Reset) and – you guessed it – WWF – and how the stage is set to transform the face of the dairy industry, voluntarily of course.

The Farmshine timeline published last summer has been updated in this edition. Originally, our investigations placed the start of this DMI / WWF partnership at 2014 when Innovation Center Sustainability Alliance chairman Mike McCloskey and current Dairy Scale for Good director Caleb Harper became part of the WWF Thought Leadership Group and we could find evidence of WWF working with DMI on the FARM program ‘Smart Tool’.

But no, the truth learned last week from Karen Scanlon, DMI’s vice president of sustainability, answered this reporter’s submitted question about the DMI / WWF relationship. That history goes back to a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed by DMI and WWF in 2008-09 when DMI formed the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy and Mike McCloskey started his 12 to 13 year tenure as chairman of the Innovation Center’s ‘Sustainability Alliance’ (also known as Global Dairy Platform).

This was the same point in time when MOUs were signed between DMI, USDA (Vilsack) and the NFL to create GENYOUth, and the same point in time when the MOU on sustainability was signed by DMI and USDA (Vilsack).

DMI president Barb O’Brien was quick to interject that WWF-US is “much different” from WWF-International. Dairy producers have heard this line before. However, it is clear from the WWF organizational structure that it has always been global in its goals and aligned on reducing animal-sourced foods along the lines of the EAT Lancet diets and the World Economic Forum Great Reset and United Nations Food Transformation goals.

DMI board chairwoman Marilyn Hershey explained that DMI will be involved in the United Nations Food Transformation Summit to be held this summer. She said DMI has people on some of the Summit’s committees.

“Up until a few years ago, the UN was making decisions without us at the table. We are going into that Summit at a lot of levels — top, middle and bottom — and we have farmers involved, bringing the farmer story,” said Hershey.

The question is, what farmer story will be told? The one that is coming out of the WWF study that exaggerates the dairy industry’s GHG emissions ‘starting point’ while advocating the solution for investment in what is essentially a 3000-cow Fair Oaks model, which many producers in many sizes and geographies can’t replicate?

From the comments made by Scanlon, it was clear that WWF “opened doors” for DMI’s involvement, and, in essence, held their hand into the food transformation movement. This lends to what Paul Ziemnisky, vice president of global innovation partnerships, spoke of in terms of blended beverages and the future being “dual purpose” milk plants, producing the blended beverages that are “relevant.”

Hershey railed against the way animal-rights organization HSUS is causing “internal disruption” in the dairy industry.

“That is their plan,” she said. “We have to be aware that there is a plan to get rid of the checkoff so that the checkoff is not there anymore to serve as the gateway protecting farmers so they can continue to farm. We can’t pit farmer against farmer. There has to be unity.”

And yet, many would put WWF in the same category with HSUS in terms of end-game goals. Even checkoff leaders admit that the “international” WWF is an organization to be wary of, but they somehow believe WWF-US is different, even though they are all part of the same global structure and strategy.

What does it matter if dairy is led by the hand with doors opened by WWF to be part of food transformation that reduces the role of animals, or if this transformation is internally disrupted by concerned producers of all types and sizes as they strive to find their place in that future painted in part by WWF?

The World Wildlife Fund in its 2012 Report “Better Production for a Living Planet” identifies the strategy it has been using to accomplish its priorities for 15 identified commodities, including dairy and beef, related to biodiversity, water and climate. Instead of trying to change the habits of 7 billion consumers or working directly with 1.5 billion producers, worldwide, WWF stated that their research identified a “practical solution” to leverage about 300 to 500 companies that control 70% of food choices. By partnering with dairy and beef checkoff national boards in this “supply-chain” leverage strategy, WWF has essentially used producer funds to implement their message and priorities both to consumers through supply chain decisions and to producers through checkoff-funded programs validating farm practices. *Image and explanation directly from 2012 WWF Report*

The WWF end-game as a partner with the WEF Great Reset and UN Food Summit is to transition American and European diets to more plant-based and lab-created alternatives and blends, while helping developing countries like Africa use the efficient technologies of those transitioning ‘rich’ nations to improve the environmental footprint of their ‘poor nation’ cattle herds. This dovetails with the announcements by Microsoft founder Bill Gates as he released his new book on climate change this week — complete with hair-raisihng interviews talking about rich countries moving to 100% plant-based and cell-cultured diets, while poor countries continue to eat animal-sourced products using U.S. advancements to reduce their GHGs. (see related story).

There was so much to learn about how the dairy checkoff arrived to where it is today in terms of direction and structure. This part of the multi-part series focuses on the relationship with WWF, the Net Zero Initiative and the new WWF “independent” study highlighting how “large dairies can be net zero in five years.”

Not only is this recently-released study promoted by DMI based entirely on the 3000-cow Fair Oaks model – with a methane digester that includes over 50% co-digestion of other waste products, 70% forage ration fed to cattle, 80% of cow diets grown on-site, and zero heifers on-site – it is also riddled with mathematical inaccuracies that exaggerate the “starting point” for collective greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. dairy farms, making the problem appear to be worse than it really is perhaps in order to make a pre-competitive ‘solution’ seem better than it needs to be. (see related story)

“What has your checkoff done for you lately?” According to the so-named session during the Pa. Dairy Summit, O’Brien stated: “We know who we work for in all of these partnerships is the dairy farmer, to bring your voice forward for growth in the marketplace and protecting your freedom to produce…”

There was emphasis placed on how the Net Zero Initiative (NZI) is central to DMI’s work and its partnerships as the ‘voice of producers for growth.’

“Consumers want to feel good about, and have trust in what they buy,” said Scanlon, explaining how NZI addresses this.

She displayed a slide showing the many investor groups in climate and sustainability efforts that are setting their own goals and expectations throughout their supply chains, as well as countries making legal commitments to be carbon neutral by 2050 or sooner.

“The consumer piece is to meet people where they are,” said Scanlon, adding that the NZI was an 18-month process of stakeholder input with the results announced last April when the new dairy sustainability goals were released. However, we learned in later questioning that this has been in the works for 12 to 13 years since WWF and DMI began their MOU-signed formal relationship at the start of the Innovation Center.

“We are flipping to dairy as a climate solution,” said Scanlon. “The goal is 2050, and these are the ways we can reach them.”

Scanlon stressed that the NZI goals are “aggregate,” meaning they are collective industry goals. She said the processors have their own working group developing their own strategies from farm to consumer, and NZI is the field-to-farm portion through DMI’s Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy.

“We have formed specific work streams related to waste, water use, packaging and greenhouse gas emissions, and we (DMI) have been investing in the reporting tool to track them,” she said.

“This is completely voluntary. It is not immediate. Not everyone will do all the things, and there are pathways for all to contribute with a long runway (to 2050),” she said. “We are meeting consumers where they are and matching environmental benefits with economic benefits to make voluntary adoption happen to avoid regulation.”

She referenced the WWF study as a “viability study” that Dairy Scale for Good, headed by Caleb Harper, can use to track and implement. She called the study a “spreadsheet exercise” that Harper, as director of Dairy Scale for Good, can put out on pilot farms to “prove out through a combination of practices that in the real world, we can see net-zero emissions with improved economic viability.”

Scanlon noted that the “collective impact” of NZI will be driven by “broad voluntary adoption” through four environmental footprints on the farm.

Right now, what is underway through the FARM program “Farm Smart Tool” (developed with WWF), is to “quantify ecosystem services that are being provided by farms and to accelerate new income from providing these ecosystem services,” Scanlon explained.

With this becoming part of the FARM program, voluntary would, by default, become mandatory when member cooperatives and milk processors begin to expect their producers to show improvement on the data currently being collected. Yes, it is voluntary for the milk buyers and cooperatives. But once they sign on with that module in FARM — as it is developed through pilot farms ‘proving out’ the ‘spreadsheet exercise’ – this would potentially translate as mandatory through the milk buyer or cooperative.

When asked what NZI could mean for those farms with methane digesters, Scanlon said the purpose is to “knock down barriers for farms to invest and for those already invested, so they will potentially see a return.”

In addition to farms providing for “ecosystem service markets,” the other pathway mentioned is farms meeting low carbon fuel standards.

“NZI is focused on how to take on the barriers that prevent more farms from affording or using more technologies,” said Scanlon, noting many farms with digesters could be “pretty close to net-zero already.”

Bottom line? The DMI / WWF decade-plus partnership is now culminating with data collection that will be used to “help farms understand where they are today on their own journey to net-zero, and where we are today as an industry on that journey,” said Scanlon.

In response to a question on the good work already being done on dairy farms, how it is tracked and counted toward this model, Scanlon said that during 2019 into early 2020, two studies were done. Both concluded that U.S. Dairy and the North American continent decreased their overall carbon footprint by 19% over a 10-year period.

“The tool available through the FARM program is the environmental stewardship module,” Scanlon explained.

Karen Scanlon, DMI vice president of sustainability, acknowledged the 12 to 13 year relationship between DMI and WWF at the very beginning of DMI’s formation of the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy working on tools and strategies leading up to the Net Zero Initiative (NZI) launch last fall. She explained NZI’s four focus areas, the outcomes that are planned and the Farm Smart Tool WWF helped design that is already collecting on-farm environmental data via the FARM program. *Screenshot during virtual Pa. Dairy Summit session*

The Farm Smart Tool in that module is the tool to assess farms for a “snapshot of their emissions and energy intensity, and we are working to make it more clear on the four focus areas. This will evolve and improve over time,” she said.

“What’s important in 2021 is to work with our partners — the cooperatives and processors — to do the inventory of current practices on farms. We would like to catalog what you are doing on your farms today so that we (DMI) can tell that story,” Scanlon stressed.

As has been seen with the FARM program, to-date, ‘the devil is in the details.’ Producers asked whether this will be like the other modules being monitored through cooperatives and third-party auditors.

“Our intention is to support the voluntary and progressive actions of dairy, and we already have major dairy customers asking farms to document how they are sustainable,” Scanlon replied. “We are working globally and nationally to streamline this and to reduce the burden down at the farm level, to have a way to document and have assurance that our tools and metrics and reporting will satisfy what they are looking for.”

Scanlon noted that the FARM program’s on-farm assessment tool (Smart Tool developed with WWF) is how the industry will move toward its 2050 Net Zero Initiative goals.

So, back to WWF. Why is DMI working with WWF?

O’Brien stated: “First, we see (WWF) as two different organizations. There are two operations of WWF — domestic and international. They are two very different organizations in terms of their positioning and tenor toward agriculture and animal agriculture, with a different level of activisim within their own strategies.”

She stressed that the recently-released WWF white paper describing how large dairies can be net zero in five years was “an independent report published by WWF and done with no checkoff funding, but it drew on our modeling and science,” said O’Brien. “We feel it is important for WWF to put that forward. They are viewed by other non-governmental organizations (NGOs), businesses and consumers as being an important voice around climate change.”

While O’Brien stated that, “We (DMI) do not currently have an MOU with WWF, we did have a very positive partnership with WWF going back 5 to 6 years and this was about bringing additional third-party credibility to what we are doing.”

Scanlon gave a more detailed answer – perhaps more detailed than DMI would have desired. She stated that, “WWF was around from the beginning of the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy (2008-09). WWF was one of the initial NGOs coming together with dairy around the table for precompetitive planning.”

Scanlon went on to say that, “WWF gave us support and felt there was a lot of value in sitting down with dairy farmers and companies. They contributed to the development of the FARM model, provided third-party credibility and have been a longtime reviewer and supporter of those farms receiving annual innovation awards.

“Through WWF, we (DMI) had access to expertise and doors opened to companies… to use that relationship to better inform them about what dairy is actually doing,” said Scanlon. “The agreement expired at the end of 2019. We have not renewed that agreement. We have continued our conversations and exchange of information, but with no formal relationship with WWF at this time.”

No formal relationship at this time? After a 10-plus-year formal relationship, WWF has helped DMI set the stage for dairy transformation that converges perfectly with the agenda set by big tech, billionaire faux food and climate investors, World Economic Forum’s Great Reset, the back-and-forth USDA / DMI musical chairs of Tom Vilsack and the Green New Deal approach, and the billing that the UN Food Transformation Summit is the focal point of the Great Reset to meet climate goals set in the background by billionaires like Gates and his Breakthrough Ventures colleagues George Soros, Tom Steyer, Michael Bloomberg, Mark Zuckerburg, Jeff Bezos (Amazon) and others as Walmart, Bank of America, MasterCard, PepsiCo, Nestle, Unilever and others file in.

Yes, DMI is at that table, according to staff and leadership. Yes, WWF helped them get to that table and helped develop the very tool to collect, track and catalog on-farm climate and environmental data. But, who is leading whom, and while at that table, with middle-of-the-supply-chain partnerships, who is DMI really working for?

And while all this planning and scheming is going on at the global level, who is communicating with consumers about some of the realities? Are we really meeting consumers where they are? Or are we knowingly or unknowingly participating in a scheme to move consumers to where these entities want them to be? (See WWF strategy model above).

Look for more DMI umbrella categories covered as this series continues.

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Smoke and mirrors

Posted on February 25, 2021 by Agmoos

Oatly CEO Toni Petersson sings ‘Wow, wow, no cow’ in the 30-second ad spot during the Super Bowl Sunday evening. It was filmed in 2014 in Sweden where the commercial is legally banned from airing. Screenshot

By Sherry Bunting, Farmshine, Feb. 12, 2021

EAST EARL, Pa. – Some are calling it the worst commercial of this year’s Super Bowl, others say it was so bad, it could be the most memorable. The 30-second ad aired over most of the nation in the second quarter of the game. It was filmed in Sweden in 2014 and ultimately banned from airing in Sweden, where the Oatly brand of fake-milk beverage originated.

The ad seen by millions during the Super Bowl depicted Oatly CEO Toni Petersson singing in the middle of a field of oats (some believe the crop looked more like soybeans but that is beside the point).

Donning a T-shirt with the words “No artificial badness,” Petersson played an electric piano with a carton of Oatly and a poured glass of the oat beverage atop, singing: “It’s like milk, but made for humans. Wow, wow, no cow. No, no, no. Wow, wow, no cow.”

At another point in the Super Bowl, TurboTax ran its #taxfacts ad showing a man on a computer screen atop a rolling desk going from one scene and tax-related question to another. As the singing computer face atop the desk rolls through a herd of beef cows, we hear the words: “In some places they tax flatulence, like the kind that comes from cows,” (followed by the sound of a fart). Just a couple seconds of the 30-second spot completely unrelated to cows and reality subtly reinforces and normalizes the myth that cow flatulence is taxable because it’s a climate-thing, when it is actually, factually and mathematically insignificant as a climate thing.

Seriously, stop the madness. And, as always, the lack of a television presence for milk and dairy farmers leaves silence as the answer.

One thing is clear: Dairy farmers once again find themselves on the losing end of a long-term ‘partnership’ with the National Football League.

By his own admission, DMI CEO Tom Gallagher says the checkoff has been working through its partnerships over the past 12 to 13 years on the sustainability plan and Net Zero Initiative. Now the rollout dove tails in content and timing with the malarkey coming out of the World Economic Forum Great Reset and its food transformation stalwart the World Wildlife Fund (also known as Worldwide Fund for Nature, WWF).

DMI integrates the industry through its unified marketing plan and the various nonprofit organizations, alliances, committees and initiatives — beginning with the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy, formed in 2008-09, launching the industry’s structural drivers beginning with the globalization initiative (Bain Study 2008), then social responsibility (FARM program 2015) and now ‘sustainability’ (Net Zero Initiative 2020). Graphic by Sherry Bunting, source USdairy.com

Over those past 12 to 13 years, the direction of promotion has moved off-radar through partnerships. This began with DMI’s creation of the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy (known officially to the IRS as the Dairy Center for Strategic Innovation and Collaboration). Within the Innovation Center is the Sustainability Initiative headed by Mike McCloskey over the past 12 to 13 years and known officially as listed on IRS 990 forms as Global Dairy Platform.

Yes, it is all so very confusing. An entire new structure for the dairy industry and its farm-to-table supply chain has been created, along with sustainability parameters and promotion partnerships, within these non-profits under the DMI umbrella.

DMI’s umbrella of tax-exempt organizations where checkoff dollars flow and bring partners into the picture to “work on shared priorities.”

Cutting through to the point here is this: Dairy farmers have continually asked their dairy checkoff leaders over the past 12 to 13 years why television ads are seldom, if ever, seen; why those that are seen air at off hours; why the NFL’s reference to Play 60 never includes the “Fuel up” part. The milk is always absent from the promotion on the NFL side.

Whenever these questions are asked at meetings or on conference calls, dairy checkoff leaders say – in unison – “television ads don’t work” and “the NFL owns Play 60, but we own the Fuel Up and can use the Fuel Up to Play 60. Yes, the flagship program of GENYOUth.

Meanwhile, milk’s competitors are using television ads. All the beverage competition is using television ads. Granted, the checkoff budget is not large enough to put all of its eggs into the television ad basket, but surely a few well-placed prime time ads – like in the Super Bowl – would generate ongoing exposure. Those ads get rated, replayed and talked about for weeks.

Here’s the thing: Each year, DMI lists the NFL among its top five independent contractors on its IRS 990 form showing $4 to $6 million annually in checkoff funds is paid to NFL Properties for “promotion.”

In the recently acquired 2019 IRS 990 form, DMI listed just over $6 million to NFL Properties.

By comparison, the cost of a 30-second television spot during the prime-time Super Bowl for 2021 was $5.5 million. Perhaps the over $6 million handed over to the NFL would have been better spent buying 30 seconds of airtime to promote milk and dairy.

After all, DMI can’t even answer the question asked by farmers or media who have inquired about what the money paid to the NFL is actually for. This question was asked face-to-face last March at a Q&A meeting on a farm with DMI chair Marilyn Hershey and UDIA executive vice president Lucas Lentsch. They did not answer it. They scratched their heads and acted as though they didn’t know that kind of money was paid to the NFL. They said they would ask. This reporter has also asked the question. No answers have been forthcoming.

Here’s the other deal. It was 12 to 13 years ago that GENYOUth was created with the official name as it appears on tax forms: Youth Improved Incorporated. That saga began with a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed by then USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, the NFL and the National Dairy Council, along with GENYOUth CEO Alexis Glick. She was suggested for the spot by worldwide communications firm Edelman. (Edelman does the PR work for Oatly, is engaged with the NFL and also with PepsiCo. Edelman also received over $16 million for promotion from DMI in 2019 and similar amounts in each of the previous four years as DMI’s all-in-one PR firm, creator of Undeniably Dairy.)

Since that 2009 MOU signing, we have seen fancy New York City Gala events explained as a way for GENYOUth to raise funds for school breakfast carts and to give dairy farm checkoff leaders the chance to rub elbows and talk with ‘thought leaders.’ Meanwhile, GENYOUth is the vehicle to make students ‘agents of change’ for ‘planetary diets’.

We have seen PepsiCo – the NFL’s real long-term beverage partner – come on-board the GENYOUth bus, even receiving a major GENYOUth award in 2018, with just a $1 million one-off investment next to the over $4 million spent every year since inception by DMI to keep the GENYOUth vehicle running — not to mention salaries and other soft costs not parsed-out on tax forms. We have seen a proliferation of PepsiCo branded products on breakfast carts and in school cafeterias next to fat-free and low-fat milk and dairy offerings.

And at this year’s Super Bowl pre-game festivities, DMI excitedly reported that GENYOUth would have the honor of hosting the “Taste of NFL” in the virtual pandemic environment and using the event to “raise money for children to get their school meals.”

Throughout the Taste of NFL pre-game session last week, GENYOUth CEO Alexis Glick was promoting the PepsiCo-product-filled thank you boxes for donators. In one video appearance, she stated, offhand, that she’ll have to go get her milk, but never did. There was no milk in the scene, just a small plate of cheese and fruit off to the side and a large zoom lens focused on the PepsiCo Super Bowl box.

Promotion time – and money — wasted.

But checkoff leaders say it’s okay because all of this is for a good cause! The GENYOUth bus full of boarders focused on one thing, raising money for hungry children.

While it’s true that the NFL ran an ad this football season talking about partnering with America’s dairy farmers to raise money to feed hungry kids. Those commercials were only seen by this reporter during pre-game interviews, not during actual games and nothing of the sort ran on Super Bowl night. The closest thing to it was the NFL’s celebration of essential workers at the start of the game, where glimpses of farmers, truckers, and store staff stocking shelves were included among the photos and videos of medical personel.

As for NFL’s big beverage partner, PepsiCo, the CEO of its North American division, Albert Carey, was presented with the GENYOUth Vanguard award at the 2018 Gala, he stated that the company had long admired the Play 60 program of the NFL and wanted to be part of it. — Now PepsiCo has a new joint venture with Beyond Meat to produce and market ‘alternative protein’ snacks and beverages.

Yes, the cross-purposes and proprietary partnerships make the whole scene confusing.

Dairy farmers are good hearted people. Of course, they want to be part of efforts to feed hungry children and to help America’s youth be well and have access to good nutrition. But even this worthy goal has been wrestled right out of their hands by the other ‘partner’ in the three-way MOU – the USDA and its flawed Dietary Guidelines that inform regulations that smile on Mountain Dew Kickstart offerings in schools and prohibit whole milk.

You can’t make this stuff up.

Dairy transformation has been in the works for 12 to 13 years through the proprietary partnerships working ‘pre-competitively’ within the vehicles constructed with mandatory farmer funds under the DMI umbrella.

It is all smoke and mirrors. So much of what has gone on for these 12 to 13 years is just now becoming evident as the smoke clears, and producers can see they have indeed been funding their own demise.

Time to get back to the drawing board.

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Dairy milk: The rest of the story on milk fat and fraud

Posted on February 15, 2021 by Agmoos

Dairy milk consumption has two faces: nutrition and sustainability. Aside from a small percentage of healthy fat and more protein than the knock-offs, dairy milk is fresher than soy, almond, coconut, oat and other counterfeit ‘milks.’ In fact, it is so locally produced and bottled that it is also much better for the health of local economies and environment. Have you seen any almond, coconut or cashew trees on the East Coast and Midwest of the U.S.? As for oat beverage, most of the oats are harvested in Canada and processed in Asia. Here in the Northeast U.S., there are millions of acres of grasslands and croplands that provide habitat for wildlife, filter rainwater, hold soil in place, maintain open spaces, photosynthesize carbon from the air, keep something growing on the land year-round as cover crop and forage, and create jobs and economic stimulus that all begin with land being managed by dairy farmers. A dairy cow can eat grass, hay, whole corn plant silage, and other roughage grown on marginal lands. These forage crops are 50 to 70 percent of the dairy cow’s diet, and she will turn them into nutrients we can use in the form of nutrient-dense milk and dairy products we love. How cool is that?

By Sherry Bunting

We read about and see the growing number of choices in the dairy aisle that make a simple trip to the store for milk, one that can be quite confusing. There’s the thing about fat (all those different percentages) and the thing about fraud (all those plant, nut, and bean drink products calling themselves ‘milk.’)

First, the different “percentage milks” we know as skim, 1 percent, 2 percent and whole milk. The latter is confusing, is it 100 percent milk? Do some people think it is 100% fat?

Well, all dairy milk is 100 percent milk, no mater what the fat percentage… But, No: Whole milk is not 100 percent fat. It is not even 10 percent fat. It is standardized to 3.25 percent fat, and if you drank it straight from the cow it would be anywhere from 3 to 5 percent fat depending on breed of cow, time of year, and type of roughage fed.

And then there is protein. Did you know dairy milk provides a little over 8 grams of protein per 8 oz. serving? It packs quite a bit more protein-punch than almond ‘milk’ at a little over 1 gram of protein per 8 oz. serving.

Made like coffee, the crushed almonds are filtered with water. In fact, an 8 oz. serving of almond milk may be more like eating an almond and drinking a glass of water with sugar and thickeners added and a handful of other ingredients.

A common almondmilk brand label lists these ingredients the first being almondmilk defined as almond-filtered water: Almondmilk (Filtered Water, Almonds), Cane Sugar, Sea Salt, Natural Flavor, Locust Bean Gum, Sunflower Lecithin, Gellan Gum, Calcium Carbonate, Vitamine E Acetate, Zinc Gloconate, Vitamin A Palmitate, Riboflavin (B2), Vitamin B12, Vitamin D2.

A typical dairy milk label lists these ingredients: Milk, Vitamin D3. Pretty simple to see that the calcium and vitamins on the milk label are already in the milk and that zero sugar is added and zero thickeners.

The freshness of REAL dairy milk can’t be beat going from farm to table in 24 to 48 hours. It comes naturally from the cow providing the natural proteins and calcium and small amounts of healthy fat that our bodies readily absorb and utilize.

In fact, the carb-to-protein ratio of chocolate milk is now shown to be one of the best sports-recovery drinks on the market today. Yes, plain ‘ole chocolate milk. Maybe if farmers call it by another name, consumers will take notice to what has been in front of them all along.

Still, for many consumers, the perception persists that whole milk is a high-fat beverage, when in reality it is practically 97 percent fat free!

At the bottling plant, milk is pasteurized and standardized. Cream is skimmed to package whole milk at 3.25 precent fat. The skimmed cream—along with additional cream skimmed to bottle the 1% and 2% and non-fat milks—is then used to make other products like butter, ice cream, yogurt, cream cheese, sour cream and dips.

The “standard of identity” for yogurt states it also contain a minimum of 3.25% fat—just like whole milk.

Even ice cream is not 100 percent fat. The FDA standard of identity is that it contain a minimum of 10 percent fat. Some of the richer, higher-end ice creams contain up to 14 percent fat. But along with that fat, comes some nutritional benefits. These are not empty calories.

Butter is high in fat because it is, after all, a fat. Even it ranges 82 to 84 percent fat. A tablespoon of butter in the pan or on your veggies is a smaller quantity serving than an 8 oz. glass of milk; so even though the fat content is much more concentrated at a higher percentage, no one sits down and eats a cup of butter (2 sticks)!

Furthermore, we have learned that the saturated fat in milk and meat are not bad for us and that when part of a healthy integrated diet may actually provide heart healthy ‘good’ cholesterol.

The fears ingrained over 50 years of low-fat dogma are being abandoned as a nutritional experiment that has failed miserably, even though the federal government continues to hang on to the failed lowfat experiment in the recent 202-25 Dietary Guidelines.

What a growing number of scientists have found is that we need not have blamed whole milk, butter—or beef for that matter—all of these years. In fact, the recent rise in obesity and diabetes is linked more to overconsumption of carbohydrates that have filled the energy-void after we collectively sucked healthy fat out of our diets.

Saturated fats are not the enemy, the “new” science shows. However, the science is really not new. Long-time observers, investigative reporters, and scientists note that the very science supporting the health benefits of saturated fats found in milk and meat has been around for decades, but was ignored — even buried.

Meanwhile, U.S. consumer demand for butter has been expanding, and worldwide demand for U.S.-produced ice cream and yogurt has grown as well. Dairy foods and snacks that offer an energy boost with a healthy protein-to-energy ratio—such as yogurt, whole milk, and even ice cream—will be particularly in demand in nations where busy, on-the-go consumers look for reviving options.

Healthy, natural fat and protein from milk and meat keep food cravings at bay to prevent binge-eating on empty-carb snacks. Enjoyed as part of a healthy integrated diet, dairy products—even ice cream—are satisfying, nutrient-dense, carb-moderating foods that can even be the dieter’s best friend.

Go real, go natural. There’s no reason to fear real milk, dairy and beef products from cattle. Contrary to what the activists say and contrary to government ‘guidelines’ that refused again to consider all the science, nutrient-dense full-fat dairy foods and meat are good for us, and yes, good for the planet.

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Pandemic economics, concerns on the radar, and valuable business insights shared as Dr. Kohl kicks off PA Dairy Summit

Posted on February 10, 2021 by Agmoos

Dr. Kohl covered the gamut of what’s on his dairy and agriculture radar at home and abroad. Then he encouraged producers to separate the controllables from the uncontrollables to focus on the business. One tool he highlighted evaluates business management IQ using 15 critical questions for crucial conversations because it gets people thinking.

China, fake meat and dairy, propaganda seeking to eliminate the dairy cow, and much more concern him. But Dr. Kohl encourages farmers to seek opportunities, be flexible, innovative and adaptive, and to follow a process for their business and sharpen their business focus. Be sure to check out the navigation points on Dr. Kohl’s compass at the end of this article.

By Sherry Bunting

HARRISBURG, Pa. – The disruptions and challenges of the past year also create opportunities, said Dr. David Kohl, Virginia Tech professor emeritus and co-owner of Homestead Creamery for the past 20 years.

He was the keynote speaker kicking off the 2021 Pennsylvania Dairy Summit held virtually this week through an online convention format that had much of the signature Summit feel.

In his characteristic style, Dr. Kohl stepped the virtual audience through a broad global and domestic view of events and evolution down to the impacts at the dairy farm level with motivational thoughts on how to navigate.

He urged farmers to navigate rocky roads of change by adopting two key management elements. First, be flexible, innovative and adaptable. Second, follow a process for the business with a business focus.

Kohl also encouraged producers to manage around the things they can’t control like election results, pandemics and the strategies of China’s Xi Jinping.

“A good marketing and risk management plan is critical. In this environment, we have to separate the controllables and uncontrollables… and look for the opportunities,” he said.

As he has in past seminars since the pandemic, Kohl highlighted the ‘buy local’ movement is picking up steam post-Covid. “Many of you are in that footprint. One-third of the U.S. population is in your area, so this movement might be sustainable,” he said.

That’s good news. The bad news is the acceleration of economic divide, said Kohl. He sees this affecting agriculture, other businesses and households, which will add to the economic volatility and extremes in the big three: milk prices, feed costs and interest rates.

Market supercycle

“We are in another supercycle that is really impacting the grain sector,” said Kohl. He cited the stimulus checks as “dangerous one-off income” leading to printing more money, which devalues the dollar. This fuels more exports, especially when coupled with the ‘China-effect’ as they rebuild their protein sector and livestock industry.

This, along with weather concerns in South America and investor speculation have “shot those grain prices higher, especially on corn, beans, and we see it in cotton, all up.”

He sees this grain market supercycle abating through 2021 and 2022. The grain price rally is not sustainable, in his view, unless weather problems in South America persist and unless weather affects North American crops this coming season.

Globalization

Kohl noted that globalization started six decades ago, and he marked 1995 through 2015 as the period of “hyper-globalization, but in recent years, we’ve moved away from this. Dairy is right in the crosshairs of this shift because exports have become a much bigger share of milk production,” he said. “If de-globalization continues, this will impact agriculture in the U.S.”

He warned that the dairy industry would be well advised to not shape itself with China’s market in mind.

“Don’t bet your dairy expansion on trade with China,” said Kohl. He gave the example that 300 million people in China were without power a month ago because China would not allow Australian coal in to fuel plants.

Kohl observes that while the U.S. and Europe are bickering about everything, China has been pursuing world power. China has invested a trillion dollars in 68 countries – the agriculture ‘hot-spots’ around the world.

“Their initiatives will impact our competitiveness,” said Kohl, noting that China is also moving ahead on building a world supply chain for vaccines made at sites they have cultivated in developing countries.

“China could be the leading power by 2040, even 2027. They are going to move forward very fast if we don’t get our act together,” he said, explaining the recent “regional” trade pact China made that makes China the central focus in Asia.

Market Concentration

The flipside of globalization is the domestic U.S. food supply and marketing chain.

“That’s our Achilles heel,” said Kohl. “We have too much concentration with too few firms, and I’m being very blunt about this. We saw what happened when plants shut down. Now we see more nations saying they want to become more self-reliant. This is something to watch closely over the next five years.”

Kohl said the industries that are linked to dairy are in 50 to 75% recovery while at the same time Amazon, Walmart, Target are operating at 125%.

“They are getting too much power here in the U.S. and around the world,” he said, noting that on one hand the buy-local movement is accelerating, but on the other hand, the pandemic environment has moved even more market power to these large global entities.

Expressing agricultural ‘serfdom’ concerns, Kohl responded to a question about China purchasing agricultural land and assets in the U.S. This also hit upon the recent news in business journals that Microsoft founder Bill Gates has been buying up farmland and is now the single largest owner of U.S. farmland (not total land but good arable farmland).

“I am worried about this one,” said Kohl. “Some of this big investment money creates serfdom. We need to do some due diligence, and we don’t have enough political forces looking at this. Canada put the kabash on China buying their land.” He noted that his research shows the land purchased by Gates through Cascade Investments is fertile land next to rivers and near international ports, as well as land with mineral rights.

’They want to eliminate the dairy cow’

Kohl’s Summit keynote discussion came the morning after the Super Bowl. And yes, he noticed the Oatly (oat beverage) ad that ran before halftime.

“Did you see the guy last night singing in the field talking about eliminating the dairy cow?” he asked, quoting other CEOs of brands like Beyond Meat also stating their goals to replace cows entirely.

On fake dairy and meat alternatives, Kohl was emphatic about how closely this needs to be watched.

“They’ve got the money. They’ve got the power. And they think they are saving the environment,” he said, explaining that these products are going to become more competitive with real dairy and meat as large investors and large companies in the traditional dairy and meat supply chain ecosystem get involved to drive the alternative product prices down and change the packaging. He gave the example that Beyond Meat is already closing that gap at $6.79 to $6.99 per pound compared with ground beef at $5.49 per pound.

“They are coming after traditional agriculture. That much is loud and clear,” said Kohl. “Big Ag has to look themselves in the face — that they allowed this to happen — with too much market power. This is me speaking, and I’m being blunt.”

During the chat session that followed, Kohl noted that even their Homestead Creamery based in Blacksburg, Virginia is seeing competition from non-dairy alternatives where they sell their fresh local dairy products.

“It is interesting that we are getting more questions on the non-meat and non-dairy products out there. Our customers are asking our sales team,” said Kohl. “We try to go into it with more education, and we are going A2A2 as a differentiator for our milk and ice cream.”

Minimum wage impact

Current legislation being considered in Congress includes a four-year phase-in to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour. That’s more than double the current federal minimum wage.

“This will be bad for small business. The big guys can handle it,” Kohl observes. “This creates more business consolidation. We’re seeing a little push back on this now, but there needs to be a lot of push back. America was built on small business and entrepreneurs. We don’t want to create a serfdom where we just work for big business.”

Stimulus, taxes, regulation

With $2 billion a day in stimulus checks being written by governments worldwide, Kohl said this ‘black swan (pandemic event) can turn into an angry bird.

When government writes check, what comes next is encroachment, said Kohl. He sees federal, state and local taxes increasing and “regulators are going to have more swagger. This makes it imperative, to surround the farm business with your best advisors and have a good tax accountant who understands agriculture.”

Regulations in the environmental, labor, banking and financial service sectors are likely to increase, said Kohl. “Regulators have a lot of pent up energy from the past four to five years, and they’ll likely be coming out with a full-court press.”

Energy independence

Noting that the U.S. had its longest economic expansion until February of last year (pandemic), Kohl said a key reason is that the U.S. became the number-one energy-supplier in the world.

The effort to become energy independent began after the tragic attack of 9-11 in 2001. Today, the U.S. is number one energy producer, Canada is number four and Mexico is number eight. This means three of the top 10 energy producers are in North America.

“Now we are seeing a rollback of this playing right into the hands of Opec,” said Kohl, noting that the advertising and policy points about moving to electric vehicles can all sound good. “But we’re not thinking of the unintended consequences, where 74% of the components (for EV vehicles) are produced in China.”

How energy plays out policy-wise is important for agriculture, according to Kohl, because “$8 out of every $10 we spend is linked to energy.”

Kohl sees a “fine balance” to be had on sustainability and climate action.

“Some things we are doing for water, air and soil health are important, but there are contributors other than fossil fuels. I see a need to think about unintended consequences. If components for new sources come all out of China, and we get locked down, that creates a problem. Also, a lot of people seem to forget: when gas goes to $5 to $7 per gallon, it shuts a consumer and a farm down very quickly.”

Navigation points on Dr. Kohl’s compass:

— Surround yourself with good advisors and a good tax accountant.

— Be careful with one-off income from government support. Are you using that money to build efficiencies or pay down debt? Don’t make long-term expansion decisions based on this one-off income.

— Watch the value of the U.S. dollar relative to other currencies, but land value should hold.

— Expect to see acceleration of ‘carbon payments’ replacing direct farm program payments.

— Keep the non-dairy and meat alternatives on the radar screen, especially if you are involved in dairy leadership.

— Healthy soil, water and air quality are important focuses as agriculture deals with weather extremes.

— See the positives that have come out of the pandemic: farms labeled essential, local food movement acceleration, time with family, time to re-evaluate priorities.

— Be flexible, innovative and adaptive.

— Have a risk management plan and realize you are going to leave money on the table when you follow a plan that works for you 8 out of 10 years.

— Keep working capital available as your shock absorber and so you will be ready for emergent circumstances and unexpected opportunities. The recommended ‘war chest’ is to have greater than 25% of the farm’s expenses (not including interest and depreciation) as working capital reserve.

— Have a written farm budget and compare periodically (monthly) to actual expenses.

— Have a separate family living budget and compare periodically to actual expenses.

— Use advisory teams. They are the fastest growing trend, and they work.

— Be proactive on a plan to transition the business and to merge older and younger views of the future.

— Evaluate your business management IQ with 15 questions to ask yourself about your business and have each member of the family in management fill it out separately. This is a great way to measure business management progress, “and it gets you to think,” said Kohl. (See chart.)

— Do your baseline cash flow projections for the farm business, but also do financial sensitivity analysis. Work through the numbers in a best-case scenario to the aspiring goals of the business, but also run worst case scenarios. Look at the analysis if interest rates go up 1 to 2% — or with changes in the input and output values — to see how those changes affect the bottom line. “This gives you the parameters to keep you out of the ditches as you move forward,” said Kohl. “If those values experience extreme change, you can fall back on that working capital reserve.”

— Monitor those cash flows monthly against projections.

— Work with ag lenders to lock in interest rates where you can.

— Re-examine your vision and your goals and make sure expansion or investments line up with these goals; keep your working capital cushion.

— Look for your “three’s” – 3 things you want to continue, 3 things you want to improve. When isolating goals and actions, limit to three to intensify your focus.

Published in Farmshine, February 12, 2021

Net Zero Initiative will ‘shape future of dairy,’ say leaders

Posted on February 4, 2021 by Agmoos

Editor’s Note: Part one provided some details on the “official” launch of the Net Zero Initiative, which according to DMI’s Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy, “signals bold climate action” as “an industry-wide effort that will help U.S. dairy farms of all sizes and geographies implement new technologies and adopt economically viable practices.”

By Sherry Bunting, Farmshine, October 27, 2021

CHICAGO, Ill. — The Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy — formed in 2008-09 by the national dairy checkoff via Dairy Management Inc (DMI) — unveiled the Net Zero Initiative earlier this month along with Nestlé’s announcement pledging up to $10 million over five years as the first ‘legacy partner’ to fund research, pilot farms and provide expertise to scale technologies and practices to achieve carbon neutrality, optimized water usage and improved water quality by 2050.

Innovation Center chairman Mike Haddad noted in a DMI media call Oct. 14 that the Environmental Sustainability Committee “has been in place a very long time – many, many years.

‘Mature effort’

“Mike McCloskey has always chaired this committee. This is quite a mature effort for us,” Haddad explained, adding that the committee decided a couple years ago that dairy can become carbon neutral, and many dairies can sequester carbon.

“We felt like there was enough evidence already with existing technology and practices, that by scaling them, we can achieve this over time, and we have been working for years to build out this framework,” he said.

As chairman of Schreiber Foods, Haddad said suppliers, companies like Schreiber, “already see this requirement from our customers who want to have our sustainability efforts feed into their sustainability efforts. They want to know that we are taking care of the earth in making our dairy products, and we have to prove it to them with our measurements along the way.”

Environmental ‘mapping’

In 2007-08, just as the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy was being formed, the mapping of dairy’s environmental footprint began.

“We were the very first ag sector to establish life cycle measurement of greenhouse gas emissions, showing U.S. Dairy at 2%,” said Krysta Harden, DMI executive vice president of global environmental strategy and former USDA undersecretary of Tom Vilsack when he was ag secretary.

“Through modernization and innovation, the environmental impact of producing milk uses 30% less water, 21% less land and manure, and has a 19% smaller carbon footprint today than in 2007,” she said. “It’s amazing where we have come since 2007.”

Harden explained that Net Zero Initiative (NZI) was started as “a dairy organization that represents farmers, cooperatives, processors, and includes DMI and the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy, NMPF, IDFA, U.S. Dairy Export Center and Newtrient.

“All of these groups came together to establish NZI,” she said. “This really is the pathway for how to get there, how to break down barriers and make it more accessible and affordable for dairy farms of all sizes and all places.”

‘Piloting’ underway

Pilot farms are already being identified throughout the country, and 2021 is set as the year to move them forward.

Next, the constant focus will be on “scaling up to accelerate progress over time to our 2050 goals,” Haddad said.

“Largely these technologies already exist but need operational improvement,” Harden added. “We can see how we can get there, but the barrier is the significant investment needed by farmers to get there. We want to knock this out by scaling, to lower the investment by farmers and generate new revenue streams for farmers. This will be critical to a self-sustaining future.”

Bottom line, said Harden: “Dairy is committed to being an environmental solution.” She said the key, at the heart of it, is the dairy farmers.

According to the Innovation Center’s official statement, the 27 dairy companies that make up its board, represent 70% of the nation’s milk production and have voluntarily adopted the U.S. Dairy Stewardship Commitment and contribute to the industry’s ability to track, aggregate and report on progress.

“We know dairy farmers are leaders, and they care about what they are producing and how they are producing it,” said Harden. “They are passionate first-adopters, embracing how the world is changing.”

Sustainable profit?

DMI vice president and California dairy producer Steve Maddox shared his thoughts from the producer perspective.

“When we first started talking about sustainability efforts by the Innovation Center, most dairy farmers viewed this with a jaded eye because it often means requiring more of them, and not of others,” said Maddox. “But this effort focuses on improving profitability and efficiency that is also environmentally sound.”

He said farmers know the importance of being as efficient as possible. Early-on, Maddox said the Innovation Center started down the road of environmental sustainability to fight claims by anti-animal-ag groups by doing the scientific measurements in 2008, to show how dairy has reduced its footprint since 1944.

“That is a significant date near the end of World War II when some of America’s greatest generation went to college, and extension — through our land grant universities — taught us to maximize production and take better care of the land,” said Maddox. “That led us to continue improving.”

As that generation retired, and with government budget cuts to research and extension, a dropoff in improvement was seen, according to Maddox. He said this signals the need for the industry to pick things up to “shape the continuous improvement of the industry at the farm level.”

During media questions, Harden stated that the $10 million from Nestlé is specifically geared toward on-farm improvement — not changes in processing or new dairy products.

However, the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy is also looking at the processing and transportation aspects of achieving the NZI goals.

In fact, the climate impact of transportation and refrigeration of milk and dairy products is already a big part of the entire shaping process through innovations such as ultrafiltration, microfiltration, and aseptic packaging for shelf stable beverages and products. These are other pieces that come from precompetitive Innovation Center collaborations.

As for the farm-level impacts of NZI, Maddox stressed how the 2007-08 life cycle analysis on milk and cheese showed that the industry reduced its use of feed, land and water through collaboration on animal care, improved genetics and the FARM program.

Shaping dairy

In other words, through FARM and NZI, companies will shape dairy’s “continuous improvement” instead of relying on extension education for those gains — mainly because, they say, the industry is at a point where these future gains will cost money. Since farms will need to invest in those gains, NZI is banking on industry and government to step up and help pay for it.

Something that often gets lost in discussions about climate change and sustainability, said Maddox is: “Cows, being ruminants, are miracles onto themselves. They convert byproduct to nature’s most perfect food.”

At his California dairy, over 50% of the cow feed on a dry matter basis is byproduct that would have gone into landfills.

“This, too, is a major part of it. We can feed all sorts of things, bakery waste, Doritos, sunflower meal… There are 400 different commercial crops grown in California, and all of them can be fed to cattle,” said Maddox.

He painted a picture of farmers learning from each other within the NZI framework.

Maddox observed that cow care and breeding to have more efficient cows is a big part of reducing dairy’s environmental impact to meet the ambitious new industrywide goals.

“All of these sustainability practices will have a bottom-line impact,” he said.

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DMI’s NZI fits globalist agenda; How are ‘life cycle assessments’ developed? What do they value?

Posted on February 4, 2021 by Agmoos

As Stewardship Commitments and Net Zero Initiative flow through to the FARM program’s Environmental Stewardship module, a user guide developed by NMPF covers what has already begun in terms of data collection. A farm’s cattle inventory of various classes and milk production, component production, feed ingredients, crop inputs and other data will be used to figure the farm’s GHG emissions relative to a regional average and relative to a national average. The guide can be read here, and additional information is available here

By Sherry Bunting, Farmshine, December 4, 2020

Where do the life cycle assessments come from that are being used to benchmark progress on U.S. dairy’s impact on climate and environment? How might this “collective” method of measurement affect dairy diversity and geography in the future?

When dairy leaders talk about the Net Zero Initiative goals, they are using analysis by well-known animal scientists comparing data over time to benchmark industrywide collective progress using a determined scope of collective measurement that fits the controlling globalist view.

The idea is to peg dairy’s progress at one value that the global supply chain can then plug into their own brand impact measurements. Yes, this is both simple and complicated.

DMI leaders are quick to point out that this pathway was decided upon by dairy farmers, dairy cooperatives, and dairy processors and that dairy checkoff is simply providing the science. But it is also clear that DMI provides the staff and structure for implementation. The national dairy farmer checkoff organizations provide the science, the staff and the structure so that the entire dairy industry can be described as one unit – not multiple units competing with each other on the aspect of ‘sustainability.’ That’s the point, they say.

Along with the Net Zero carbon neutrality goal by 2050, DMI’s Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy offers this report on a decade of progress: “The effects of improved performance in the U.S. dairy cattle industry on environmental impacts between 2007 and 2017,” was published in the January 2020 edition of the Journal of Animal Science.

This report showed dairy used 30% less water, 21% less land, produced 21% less manure nutrients and produced 19% less greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions — referred to in press statements as carbon footprint — per metric ton of energy-corrected milk over the decade of 2007 to 2017.

The research by Jude Capper and Roger Cady, along with other animal scientists, observed that, “As dairy systems become more productive, efficiency improves via the dilution of maintenance effect (Bauman, VandeHaar, St. Pierre) and both resource use and GHG emissions are reduced per unit of milk.”

The researchers indicated that monitoring changes in food production processes, yields, and environmental impacts is a time-consuming and expensive undertaking, which they took to a higher level in this study as compared to 2006 and 2009 studies that looked at how efficiency gains reduced the environmental footprint of dairy from 1944 to 2007 based completely on animal productivity gains.

In the 2007 to 2017 study, researchers only looked at dairy’s impact from the manufacture and transport of crop inputs to milk at the farm gate. Excluded from the scope of collective farm progress are the impacts of milk transportation, processing and retail.

Dairy systems were modeled using typical management practices, herd population dynamics and production data from U.S. dairy farms (USDA NASS and Dairy Records Management System-DRMS). Crop data were sourced from national databases, including NASS. Modeling and training ration formulation software was used as well as a host of data from public sources to determine water recycling, electricity and other energy usage, for example.

“The U.S. dairy industry has made remarkable productivity gains and environmental progress over time,” write Capper and Cady. “To maintain this culture of continuous improvement, dairy must build on gains and demonstrate commitment to reducing environmental impacts while improving both economic viability and social acceptability.”

At the same time, Dr. Frank Mitloehner of University of California-Davis CLEAR center has been instrumental, mainly in evaluating – and putting into perspective – accurate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for dairy and livestock as well as participating in research on how various technologies could further reduce U.S. dairy’s current contribution of just 2% of total GHG emissions.

Progress to reduce GHGs is measured per unit of milk production, but as Dr. Mitloehner frequently points out, a better way to pinpoint it would be to incorporate the nutrient density of milk and meat in calculating the impact of dairy and livestock industries per nutritive value.

For example, almond beverage might have a smaller footprint, the experts say, but what is the nutritive value of selling water with the equivalent of two almonds per serving? Much of the climate impact discussion around food is not an apples to apples comparison in terms of nutrition and calories delivered.

The FARM program’s Environmental Stewardship guide prepares dairy farmers for collection of energy use data to compare a farm to a regional and national average for energy use as a part of its carbon footprint per unit of milk production. The guide can be read here, and additional information is available here.

There are other positive aspects of “environmental impact” at local levels that fall outside of the collective global method of impact measurement. How far food travels within local or regional food systems versus national and global supply chains is not part of the farm-level Net Zero Initiative.

Meanwhile, the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy is working on product innovations at the processing level from a centralized or global supply chain perspective to reduce environmental impacts on a global scale. How do these ‘global’ vs. ‘local’ pathways intersect in the future in terms of a farm’s real contribution to the surrounding community vs. its contribution to a global impact model?

Where do the 2007 to 2017 gains from this research come from? First off, milk production increased 16% over that decade, and the number of dairy cows increased 2.2%.

Researchers explain the environmental impact was assessed using “a deterministic model based on animal nutrition, metabolism, and herd population parameters founded on life cycle assessment (LCA) principles.”

Those principles first establish the scope (in this case the scope was from crop input to milk output and did not include processing and distribution to consumers). Then inventory is established (input and output). Then the impact is established (input versus unit of output). Then the relative change is figured (improvement or reduction).

The researchers attributed a large portion of the gains to the continued dilution of ‘maintenance’ requirements per head of cattle and milk volume via these measurements:

1) A 22.3% increase in energy-corrected milk production per cow as the 12% increase in fat yield and 10% increase in protein yield were factored in,

2) Lifetime milk yield was figured to have increased 18.7% as a combination of shorter calving interval, shorter dry periods, increased replacement of mature cows with heifers, shortened days of life, and earlier calving age,

3) increased productive-animal-days across the cattle population,

4) reduced SCC as a proxy for reduced milk waste,

5) How animals are fed, how water is used, and how inputs factor into the land and carbon footprint equation, collectively.

The research showed that even though total cattle numbers have increased slightly from 2007 to 2017, the number of productive-animal-days and lifetime milk increased by more during that time due to the way all of these factors combine to show reductions in environmental impact by reducing the inputs for non-productive cattle that are counted against the productive cattle population at points in time.

Life cycle assessment of environmental impact is all about data modeling and allocation. The age at first calving is a prime example. Until a dairy animal calves, she is using resources without delivering a product. Growth rates can improve these impacts in the modeling by getting cattle to production, faster. Once the animal has a calf and begins producing milk, she is now contributing to reducing carbon footprint by supplying milk yield and component yield in the national figures against the resources she is consuming. Length of dry period, calving interval, and other reproductive efficiency also affect this. Longevity, oddly enough, has less of an effect because of how the data are assembled and used.

As for land use and manure production, researchers looked at dairy rations without full consideration of the wide range of commodity byproducts. They included some common byproduct feeds like distillers grain for both 2007 and 2017. More could be done to show the relative feed value vs. environmental impact of many byproduct commodity feedstuffs, particularly if credit could be given for keeping fiber and carbohydrate from the food processing sector out of landfills.

Double-cropping (cover crop forages) are common practice on dairy farms today, which reduce environmental impact of milk production, but are not really quantified in this life cycle assessment research at this point.

In pasture systems, the intensive rotational grazing methods used today reduce the land to milk ratio within the context of grazing-based production, but may have a smaller positive impact on the industrywide collective figure if production per cow is below benchmark. That will need to be considered because there are clear sustainability benefits to these grazing systems that fall outside of this collective model.

All of these factors being analyzed and allocated to one U.S. dairy figure are calculated to paint one picture of reduced environmental footprint. This includes water recycling. Water that is used to cool milk is also used to wash down parlors and milking equipment and in some cases, a third time in manure flush systems before being recaptured as nutrient-rich effluent to irrigate crops. In some regions and some management styles, water recycling is not measured, but natural. Take grazing operations in rainfed rolling hills. Their recycling isn’t measured, but it’s happening.

Unfortunately, when it comes to all of these measurables, including the impact of productive-animal-days vs. animal population vs. energy-corrected milk volume, it is the increased consolidation of milk production to fewer and larger farms from 2007 to 2017 that has had, perhaps, the most significant positive impact on the collective industrywide dairy environmental footprint calculations.

Why? Because as more milk production is brought into heavily controlled confinement environments, it becomes easier to measure to directly influence the model. On the other hand, pasture and drylot systems offer other sustainability and animal care positives that consumers care about but are not as easily measured by this global supply chain model of environmental footprint.

The elite globalist view seeks to control every aspect of food, agriculture, and energy. It’s important to keep sight of other sides of the ‘sustainability’ equation. Local and regional food systems provide benefits to local economies, local land use and local ecosystems that are not reflected when we measure a national or global model.

As the industry moves toward controlled environments where inputs and outputs can be precisely measured, smaller less concentrated dairy farms may not be fully appreciated for what they contribute to a community’s environmental footprint in terms of how far food travels or how local economies and ecosystems are affected. This divergence needs to be addressed.

Remember, Net Zero Initiative fits the globalist view and aligns with World Economic Forum’s Great Reset. It also aligns with language in the Green New Deal.

Viewing footprint progress on a national or global scale across all cattle and all milk volume brings positive messages but also the aforementioned concerns.

It’s important to see ‘industry’ progress, and most dairy farmers welcome the opportunity to talk to consumers about what their industry has done collectively to be good stewards. However, when the dairy leaders at DMI and all of its organized underlings tell us that food safety, sustainability and animal care are NOT areas in which brands should compete, what they are really telling us is that these are areas that will be controlled by one message using their one collective measurement method in scope and calculation.

Farm size and geography will be considered, and they say diversity is a strength, but the bottom line is measurement toward a national model seeking to meet a global goal.

By their own admission, the dairy checkoff has pursued globalization since 2008, implemented FARM to keep animal care from being a marketing factor, and they admit they are implementing Net Zero to be sure dairy comes completely into alignment with the globalist view having collective measurement that fits the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, while discouraging other forms of ‘sustainability’ marketing between brands.

Case in point, cattle longevity has little if any positive bearing on the life cycle assessment for water use, land use, manure produced and greenhouse gas emissions in the context of total-industry-collective measurement of inventory input vs. output.

In fact, the research cited in this article that is the basis for the DMI Innovation Center life cycle assessment actually shows a benefit for continual throughput of cattle with faster growth rates for calves and earlier age at first calving being more significant on the front end than the age of the cattle on the back end when applied to a collective industrywide measurement.

That’s because the total inventory of cattle in the dairy industry at any given time includes non-productive animals. Research models focus on the collective data about productive animal days vs. total cow numbers vs. milk production for input and output at given points in time — not over the lifetime of animals in the herd. Logic doesn’t always apply in this scenario.

In short, the way the industry looks at collective industrywide progress on environmental impact may differ from how an individual dairy producer or community of producers view their contribution by other equally valid measurements.

Both methods can be supported by sound scientific data, but the industrywide collective method fits the global supply chain perspective. Thus, it is the approach for the Net Zero Initiative embraced by DMI’s Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy and the 27 companies that represent its board and the over 320 companies that are part of its Sustainability Alliance.

The companies at the forefront are the largest global dairy companies and food retailers. They are also positioned as leaders and drivers of the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset, seeking to have food, technology, finance and energy sectors of the global economy work together to transform food, farming, energy, and our lives.

It will be important for individual dairy producer ideas, regional food systems, and their positive impacts on a more local scale to have a voice in how they are measured and evaluated within this truly global agenda. Speak up and stay tuned.

This document composed by the DMI Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy in November 2019 shows the “Stewardship Commitment” at a glance for each sector of the dairy supply chain involved in the Sustainability Alliance. Interestingly, under processing, there is a line item to quantify gallons of water captured from milk for use within the facility per pound of production output.

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Dairy checkoff GENYOUth ‘hero’ PepsiCo partners with Beyond Meat to market plant-based alternative protein snacks, drinks

Posted on February 4, 2021 by Agmoos

Watch those FUTP60 breakfast carts! Packaged food, beverage giant and faux-meat maker join forces to market plant-based alternative protein snacks, drinks.

By Sherry Bunting, Farmshine, January 29, 2021

The business news stream was buzzing Tuesday (Jan. 26) as Beyond Meat stock value soared to 18-month highs after PepsiCo announced a joint venture with the fake meat maker to develop and sell plant-based protein snacks and beverages.

“Plant-based proteins are playing an increasingly vital role in modern diets — they’re nutrient-rich and far more sustainable than meat,” states the PepsiCo press release about the joint venture with Beyond Meat, being launched as “The PLANeT Partnership” and billed as being “better for the planet.”

The announcement was complete with ‘clever’ marketing hashtag — #ThePLANeTPartnership — but not much science, of course, nor substance.

“Climate action is core to our business as a global food and beverage leader,” said Chairman and CEO Ramon Laguarta said just one week earlier announcing Pepsico’s ‘bold’ new climate action plan.

Beyond Meat’s global chief commercial officer Ram Krishnan said the PepsiCo partnership “represents a new frontier in our efforts to build a more sustainable food system.”

During the World Economic Forum Davos Agenda 2021 livestream on Transformation of Food Systems and Land Use on the very next day (Wed., Jan. 27), PepsiCo’s Laguarta joined United Nations FAO director, deputy secretary general, special envoy for the food transition summit later this year, CEO of Rabobank and president of Costa Rica. The relationships between these types of partnerships are becoming clear.

Let’s review:

For 11 years, dairy farmers through the mandatory promotion checkoff founded and have predominantly funded GENYOUth, a ‘youth wellness’ non-profit with the dairy checkoff’s Fuel Up and NFL’s Play 60 combined as Fuel Up to Play 60. For nine of those 11 years, GENYOUth has partnered with PepsiCo, bringing this ‘fox’ into the FUTP60 schoolhouse — even awarding PepsiCo North America CEO Albert Carey the ‘hero’ Vanguard Award at the November 2018 GENYOUth Gala event in New York City.

This, despite the fact that these two GENYOUth partners — the National Football League and its longtime beverage partner PepsiCo — contribute $1 million (or usually less) annually while dairy farmer-funded checkoff pays $4 million or more annually on the non-profit filing tax forms as Youth Improved Incorporated. DMI tax forms also show dairy checkoff payments to the NFL of $5 to $7 million annually as an independent contractor for ‘promotion services’. Amounts potentially paid in proprietary partnerships with PepsiCo are undisclosed.

GENYOUth was created while Tom Vilsack was Secretary of Agriculture during the Obama administration in 2008, with an MOU signed by USDA, NFL and National Dairy Council in 2009. (Mr. Vilsack is President Biden’s pick for Ag Secretary — again. In between his eight years as Ag Secretary under President Obama and the upcoming round-two as Ag Secretary, Vilsack was the top-paid executive hired by the dairy checkoff to head the U.S. Dairy Export Council and provide leadership for the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy)

When former President Bill Clinton was invited to speak about Vilsack at the 2017 GENYOUth Gala — the year that Vilsack was presented with the Vanguard Award — Clinton, a vegan, talked about every entity in the “diverse partnership” that he was celebrating except for America’s dairy farmers.

In the 2017 Gala speech about award winner Vilsack, Clinton talked about how children receive 40 to 60% of their calories from drinks in school. He talked about turning the obesity epidemic around by everyone taking responsibility in that area of beverages. He talked about how Vilsack’s leadership with Michelle Obama, made beverages and snacks abide by the fat-free rules, including school vending machines. Clinton stated that Vilsack was “instrumental under the radar… working for a ‘healthier’ generation of kids before coming to USDA and before the launch of GENYOUth.”

Former President Clinton thanked former Secretary Vilsack at the 2017 GENYOUth Gala for being “the guy” to tackle the beverage issue in school lunches. The year GENYOUth was formed is the year Vilsack’s USDA outright banned whole milk from school property from midnight before the start of the school day until 30 minutes after the end of the school day. The “Smart Snacks” rules went into effect under Vilsack, requiring a la carte and vending machine beverages to meet the Dietary Guidelines fat criteria and be under 60 calories per serving. (Mr. Vilsack and others in charge are still waiting for that elusive ‘preponderance of evidence’)

What happened next? A proliferation of PepsiCo snack and beverage products made their way into schools through PepsiCo’s own school foodservice company – complete with “USDA-Smart-Snacks-compliant” lists of snacks and drinks, including Mountain Dew Kickstart, Gatorade Zero, a host of snack bars, Doritos, and more.

The very next year at the November 2018 GENYOUth Gala, PepsiCo was the Vanguard Award ‘hero’. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell sang PepsiCo’s praises, of course, the NFL and PepsiCo have been partners for decades.

“I say to our farmers: They had a dream, and we have been blessed to be part of that dream. You gave us life. You believed in us. And can you believe we are standing here today on the cusp of the 10-year anniversary of FUTP60?” said GENYOUth CEO Alexis Glick just before extending “an extra special thank you to PepsiCo.”

Glick said of PepsiCo’s Carey: “The generosity of your vision, your resources, your team, time and talent have changed our organization.”

That’s a mouthful.

PepsiCo’s Carey showed his appreciation by plugging the new Quaker “oat milk” they were launching that month. It fell flat in the market, but PepsiCo is at it again with this new joint venture with Beyond Meat to make fake meat snacks and fake milk beverages that are sure to find their way onto the USDA-controlled Smart Snacks menus and FUTP60 breakfast carts in schools — even as the nutritious, delicious whole milk children love is prohibited.

In accepting the GENYOUth Vanguard award in November 2018, PepsiCo’s Carey talked about their “long and wonderful partnership with the NFL” and the way their ads and retail programs boosted both of their brands. He talked about how Play 60 was the NFL program they “most admired and wanted to be part of.” He was careful to leave out the “Fuel Up” part when mentioning the program because that is supposed to belong to the dairy checkoff.

He went on to talk about how PepsiCo “wanted to be part of the Play 60 program because of the importance of kids being active. But we also believe at PepsiCo that we need to provide healthy products for our consumers,” said Carey. “Some of you may be familiar with our mission ‘performance with purpose.’”

He described the mission as “getting great business performance while also serving others… on the part of the environment… or many other ways, but this one particular way is about providing healthier foods for our consumers.”

GENYOUth Gala, New York City, November 27, 2018: Commissioner of the National Football League, Roger Goodell, presents the Vanguard Award to Al Carey, CEO, PepsiCo North America, accepting on behalf of PepsiCo. (GENYOUth Now photo)

Carey took his time at the GENYOUth Gala podium, ‘hero’ Vanguard Award in hand, to tout PepsiCo’s “healthy beverages, including zero sugar soda, Life Water, Bubbly Sparkling Water, Gatorade Zero, Quaker oat milk.” (Yes, the now off-market Quaker oat beverage never put ‘milk’ on the label, but Carey called it ‘oat milk’ in his speech during the GENYOUth Gala as dairy-farmer-checkoff-paid employees of GENYOUth, DMI, NDC, etc. smiled and clapped with partnership euphoria).

Carey went on to tell the November 2018 GENYOUth VIP Gala audience that, “Oat milk, Bare Snacks and probiotic drinks are part of PepsiCo converting its portfolio to healthier foods for the future.”

A December 2018 Farmshine article about the Gala event quoted from the PepsiCo website, where the company touted its purpose-driven mission “to further the World Health Organization goals of alternative products to reduce saturated fat consumption and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, thereby improving global environmental and nutritional sustainability.”

What did PepsiCo do to earn the Vanguard Award from GENYOUth in 2018? PepsiCo committed $1 million that year to fund translation of the Play 60 materials in Spanish and to purchase some additional mobile breakfast carts. While it’s true those school breakfast carts carry fat-free and low-fat 1% milk, non-fat yogurt and non-fat or low-fat cheese, they are also well-stocked with PepsiCo snack bars and beverages.

After this week’s headline-making announcement of the PepsiCo – Beyond Meat joint venture to make alternative plant-based protein snacks and beverages, we see what might be appearing on those breakfast carts and USDA-compliant lunches in the not-so-distant future.

Again, as oft-repeated in this nutrition and promotion saga, the USDA / HHS Dietary Guidelines are the framework that allows less healthful foods to appear more healthful simply because they are devoid of saturated fat and contain artificial sweeteners.

The government-mandated dairy checkoff deduction from milk checks pays for government speech, which means promoting fat-free and low-fat dairy and funneling ‘change-agent’ ‘sustainability’ curriculum into FUTP60 offerings. The NFL gets logo-emblazoned flag football kits into schools to promote their brand through exercise. Corporate partners like PepsiCo develop entire meal, snack and beverage lists with their products touted as “USDA Smart Snack compliant”.

Meanwhile, dairy farmers foot the main bill for the vehicle and watch as fluid milk consumption declines took a steeper nosedive since 2008, and as a whole generation has been turned away from milk until the recent resurgence of grassroots whole milk promotion. Farmers foot the bill for the vehicle and watch as obesity and diabetes rates rise among children and teens, especially low-income communities most reliant on government feeding programs. They foot the bill and watch as schoolchildren discard large volumes of packaged skim milk only to buy those other beverages, many of them made by PepsiCo.

All because dairy promotion and school offerings are strapped to Dietary Guidelines developed by the federal government that even in this recent 2020-25 round ignore more than a decade of scientific research on dietary fats as well as ignoring the investigative reports that have uncovered the flaws in the original science at the very core of 40-years of failed dietary policy.

You can’t make this stuff up.

However, it’s not all that surprising when we see what is going on in this week’s ‘virtual’ World Economic Forum ‘Great Rest’ Davos Agenda. More than 60 global food, technology, energy, pharmaceutical, and financial companies made headlines also on Tuesday. They signed an agreement to adopt Environmental Social and Corporate Governance (ESGs), including the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) centering on Net Zero by 2050, including goals to “reserve” and control 50% of the earth’s land surface by 2050.

It is increasingly obvious that the Dietary Guidelines adopted by the U.S. and other countries around the world have little to do with human health but are a framework for using ‘nutrition’ to implement a ‘sustainability’ agenda seeking to dilute and replace animal agriculture while increasing global corporate control of food, and more.

There’s a connection to China in these convergences of factors, which is also coming to light. Figuring prominently in the WEF Great Reset Davos Agenda this week is China, as evidenced by Xi Jinping, president of the People’s Republic of China being chosen to give the opening Davos address Monday (see related story).

According to the May 20, 2020 edition of Newsweek, Beyond Meat signed a significant deal with Shuangta Foods in China’s Shandong province to provide 85% of the concentrated pea protein for its fake meat products.

Over the past decade, China has built an empire of soy- and pea- protein manufacturing. According to the Good Food Institute — the trade organization representing plant-based and cell cultured meat and milk replacements — China is a “dominant supplier” of soy and pea protein to the world and keeps expanding pea protein concentrate and isolate processing capacity, having already been at 79% of global soy protein isolate production by 2016.

This is a familiar path in the way China dominated and took over the global apple juice market two decades ago, making apple concentrate powder that is reconstituted here to bottle most commercial brands of apple juice sold in the U.S. (a major shelf-stable beverage option already offered at schools and other foodservice settings).

PepsiCo has a 40-year history of building up its presence in China, spending billions in the past decade to build up its beverage processing infrastructure. In February 2020, PepsiCo purchased Be & Cheery, maker of nut, fruit and meat snacks in China. At the same time, PepsiCo announced plans to grow online snacks sales.

Thinking back to the 2007 melamine catastrophe in China involving the addition of melamine to boost protein levels ‘on paper’ for China-produced milk powder that was destined for infant formula production, as well as the periodic recalls of pet foods for melamine levels as many of the concentrated proteins in pet foods are also made in China…

One has to wonder about the future of food.

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WEF Davos Agenda 2021 kicks off with China’s view of post-pandemic global ‘reset’

Posted on February 4, 2021 by Agmoos

Xi Jinping, president of People’s Republic of China, gives the opening address about China’s role in the post-pandemic global reset during World Economic Forum (WEF) Davos Agenda 21 this week. (WEF Livestream screenshot)

By Sherry Bunting, Farmshine, January 29, 2021

“History is moving forward and the world will not go back to what it was in the past. Every choice and move we make today will shape the world of the future. It is important that we address the four major tasks facing people of our times, (including Covid-19),” said Xi Jinping, president of the People’s Republic of China, chosen to give the opening address of the World Economic Forum (WEF) Davos Agenda 2021 opening day Monday (Jan. 25, 2021).

The annual meeting of world government and business leaders was virtual and livestreamed. It is normally held in Davos, Switzerland.

Xi identified the four global governance tasks (health, economic, climate and digital), and discussed China’s role in global digital governance and in enhancing global health governance while pledging to get more engaged in global economic governance.

“It serves no one’s interests to use the pandemic as an excuse to reverse globalization and go for seclusion and decoupling of supply chains,” he scolded, using the term “arrogant” to describe any country or region that disrupts globalization. “We are one Earth with one shared future to cope with the current crisis.” (That being the Coronavirus pandemic, which originated in the Wuhan Province of China.)

Citing climate and economic recession as the other crises facing the world, Xi Jinping talked about coordinating macro-economics to determine ‘sustainable’ global growth and to shift the global growth factors and goals to a global economic system.

“In the era of economic globalization, public health emergencies like Covid-19 may very well recur, and global health governance needs to be enhanced,” he said. “The Earth is our one and only home, to scale up efforts to address climate change and to promote sustainable development bears on the future of humanity. No global problem can be solved by any one country, alone. There must be global action, global response and global cooperation.”

President Xi went on to say that the way out of the problems facing the world is through ‘multilateralism’, that there must be ‘openness’ and ‘inclusiveness.’

He defined multilateralism as being about having international affairs addressed through consultation and everything decided for the world together. He gave his opinion that the building of small circles, the starting of a new cold war that decouples supply chains and disrupts them, the placing of sanctions, and unilateral trade agreements as reasons why the world gets pushed into division and confrontation.

The president of the People’s Republic of China said the world must act on a “shared future for mankind, peace, developmental equity, justice, democracy and freedom, to make policies that are open and inclusive and safeguard an open world economy, by taking down barriers to trade and barriers to technology exchanges.” (China is well known for requiring access to intellectual property as condition of trade).

At its roots, Xi said the world needs “structural reform and international rules based on the majority of countries agreement.” He also said the United Nations and international law rules — once made — should be followed by all.

Citing the pandemic, he said: “Now is the time for major transformation.”

He said this transformation should stand by core values of multilateralism, improve global governance systems, give full play to the World Health Organization, International Monetary System, and World Trade Organization, including fulfillment of the UN 2030 agenda for sustainable development regarding climate change.

It was at the conclusion of his remarks that the agenda seemed most clear, and chilling.

“China is on course … building the platform for a modern socialist country in a new development stage with a new development philosophy, fostering a new development paradigm with domestic circulation as the mainstay and with domestic and international circulation reinforcing each other,” Xi said.

“China will work with other countries to build an open, inclusive, clean and beautiful world that enjoys lasting peace, universal security, and common prosperity,” he concluded.

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Ag Moos

Monthly Archives: February 2021

2021 WWF / DMI ‘Net Zero’ report inflated GHG baseline for total U.S. milk production

Gates et. al. peddle fake food, climate propaganda; Guarding real food ID will be critical

DMI’s WWF connection

Smoke and mirrors

Dairy milk: The rest of the story on milk fat and fraud

Pandemic economics, concerns on the radar, and valuable business insights shared as Dr. Kohl kicks off PA Dairy Summit

Net Zero Initiative will ‘shape future of dairy,’ say leaders

DMI’s NZI fits globalist agenda; How are ‘life cycle assessments’ developed? What do they value?

Dairy checkoff GENYOUth ‘hero’ PepsiCo partners with Beyond Meat to market plant-based alternative protein snacks, drinks

WEF Davos Agenda 2021 kicks off with China’s view of post-pandemic global ‘reset’

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