Isabella Ingrao, FLS 2027<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In January, the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act<\/a> brought milk back to the menu as part of the National School Lunch program, which provides lunch for tens of millions of kids across the U.S. Additionally, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has set new dietary guidelines<\/a>, which include a recommendation of\u00a0three servings of dairy daily. However, these dairy subsidies come at a cost to the environment<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dairy milk has significantly higher environmental impacts<\/a> than its plant-based alternatives like almond, oat, or soy. Compared to non-dairy milk, dairy milk<\/a> produces about three times as many greenhouse gas emissions, requires ten times the land use, and two to twenty times the amount of freshwater in comparison to plant-based milk alternatives. Most crops and farmland are used to feed animals rather than people, producing both dairy and meat. For example, 90% of the corn grown in the U.S. and 75% of the soy grown globally<\/a> feed animals, not\u00a0people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When the USDA recommends more dairy or subsidizes dairy milk in school lunches, it essentially encourages dairy product consumption<\/a> over more environmentally-friendly alternatives. Furthermore, dairy subsidies artificially turn plant-based milks<\/a> into premium options by interrupting the flow of the free market. Plant-based milks do not receive government assistance<\/a>. Thus, taxpayers are funding the dairy industry<\/a>, even though consumers are more than willing to pay extra for plant-based milks. While the U.S. government has been subsidizing farms for almost a hundred years<\/a>, the nature of farming has changed. Large industrial farms have replaced<\/a> smaller family farms, which leads to worse outcomes for animals, such as being confined to incredible small spaces, cannibalism, and rampant disease.<\/a> Instead of subsidies going toward industries harmful to the environment for products consumers consistently do not choose, those subsidies could fund innovation that is better for both animals and the environment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For example, instead of continually funding animal agriculture, that money could fund research into new plant-based foods and lab grown meat<\/a>, or lowering the cost of plant-based meats<\/a> on the market. Alternatively, the government could subsidize healthy and environmentally friendly agriculture, such as beans, broccoli and almonds<\/a>. The easiest solution would be to subsidize plant-based milks instead of dairy milk, as those are less harmful to the environment compared to dairy milk. If the government is willing to subsidize dairy, then consumers are at a disadvantage in driving the market towards environmentally-friendly options. The good news is that the amount of government subsidies tends to change with different administrations<\/a>. Until then, if you care about your environmental impact, you might just have to pay the extra fifty cents for oat milk in your latte.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/span><\/p><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Isabella Ingrao, FLS 2027 In January, the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act brought milk back to the menu as part of the National School Lunch program, which provides lunch for tens of millions of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climate-change","category-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fordhamlawelr.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fordhamlawelr.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fordhamlawelr.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fordhamlawelr.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fordhamlawelr.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fordhamlawelr.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2143\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fordhamlawelr.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fordhamlawelr.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fordhamlawelr.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}