Narrator: Farmers in the US dumped millions of gallons of milk
during the pandemic.
It was a blow to an industry that was already struggling.
For over a century, we were told that we needed milk.
♪ Milk, it does a body good ♪
♪ Makes you big, makes you strong ♪
Narrator: But for the past 50 years,
Americans have been drinking it less and less.
Dairy farms are disappearing,
and some farmers have ditched cows altogether.
Brian: It's a recipe for disaster
if you just keep making all the milk you want
and aren't selling it all.
Narrator: And it's not just because of plant-based alternatives.
So how did we get here?
And is this the end of the line for milk?
Around 150 years ago,
drinking milk was often dangerous.
Teeming with bacteria and quick to turn sour,
milk wasn't popular, and it's no wonder why.
The invention of pasteurization changed that.
So did the discovery that milk contained essential nutrients
like vitamin A and calcium.
Announcer: Of all foods, milk is the richest source of calcium.
Narrator: Demand surged during the First World War,
and the US exported more than 750 million pounds
of condensed milk to its allies overseas.
After the war ended,
farmers were left with huge surpluses and little demand.
So the US Department of Agriculture
started "milk for health" campaigns,
which promoted milk as the solution
to undernourishment in children.
Announcer: Vitamin D milk helps build strong bones and teeth.
Narrator: In six years, milk consumption rose by 27%.
By 1926, experts were recommending children drink
a pint of milk per day.
Just over a decade later,
the recommended amount doubled to one quart per day.
Announcer: Never enough milk to go around.
Narrator: Milk prices plummeted during the Great Depression.
Dairy farmers in the Midwest went on strike,
blocking roads and dumping milk
to try and force prices back up.
Two things that'll make a man or beast fight:
hunger and protection of your offspring.
We've got both to contend with here today.
Narrator: In 1937, Congress stepped in
to guarantee farmers a minimum price for their milk,
and that system is basically the same one we use today.
Demand for dairy products spiked again
during the Second World War.
Announcer: That's a lot of milk, but it isn't enough.
We need more milk.
Narrator: When the war ended,
the government made sure prices didn't crash
by buying milk and other dairy products.
Much of it went to school lunch programs,
and some was donated overseas.
Mark: It was just the government, the taxpayer
buying dairy products off the marketplace
and giving it away, basically.
Narrator: But a lot of it was just stored
in caves across the country.
In 1981, President Ronald Reagan agreed to give away
30 million pounds of surplus cheese to low-income Americans.
But the stockpile kept growing,
and by 1983, the government
had 3 billion pounds of excess
dairy in storage.
At one point, the USDA said it would be cheaper
and more practical to just dump it in the ocean.
Instead, the government cut down
on dairy purchases and exported
or donated surplus products,
and eventually the stockpile declined by almost half.
But the government buying and storing dairy
wasn't the only problem.
Analysts also blamed inflated minimum milk prices
for incentivizing overproduction.
To try and solve this,
the government offered to pay farmers
to slaughter or export their herds
and get out of the business.
But production showed no signs of slowing down.
At the same time, milk consumption was declining.
By 1985, Americans
were drinking roughly
210 pints each per year.
It sounds like a lot,
but it was nearly 20 pints
less than a decade earlier.
The dairy industry knew
it had to do something
to get people drinking more milk.
In 1993, the California Milk Processor Board
funded an advertising campaign
that would become an instant classic.
Hold on, hold on! Let me get some milk.
No!
Jeff: We decided to tell the truth and say
you only notice it when you run out of it.
Narrator: Jeff Goodby came up with the "Got Milk?" commercials,
and the slogan stuck.
Announcer: Got milk?
Suddenly, you would drive around
and see "Got Jesus?" painted on barns.
It was everywhere.
Narrator: The campaign did improve milk sales, for a while at least.
But it wasn't enough to turn things around for good.
Meanwhile, milk production actually
increased nearly 17% between 2006 and 2016,
even as consumption sunk lower.
The cost of producing milk
had been increasing
since the '80s,
and with volatile milk prices,
this meant that many farmers were
losing money on every pint.
But farms that produced milk on
an industrial scale could still manage to make a profit.
And those farms are bigger and more efficient than ever.
But for smaller farms, like Ronnybroook, it isn't easy.
Rick Osofsky's family has owned their farm
since the 1940s.
There's been this super consolidation.
Instead of family farms with 80 cows,
there are farms with 10,000 cows.
And they seem to survive,
but I don't necessarily consider that farming.
Narrator: Nearly 54% of milk produced in 2016
came from farms with over 1,000 cows.
And roughly half of small dairy farms disappeared
between 1992 and 2017.
How long can you sustain operating below cost?
Narrator: Sam Simon has owned his farm since 1995.
To stay afloat, he created a cooperative
with nine New York farms.
They produce a premium-quality milk
and charge 60 to 80 cents more per half-gallon
than the market average.
But rising costs and falling returns
are enough to push some farmers, like Brian Jones,
to start on a new path entirely.
He switched to milking goats in 2020.
Before that, his family had been milking cows
for five generations.
Brian: This is my great-great-grandparents,
Alfred and Delia Jones.
They bought the original farm in 1872.
Narrator: Brian started farming back in the early '90s.
It looked promising, certainly then.
Narrator: But in 2010, his profits started to diminish.
Brian: Those downturns were much longer,
and the good times were much shorter than they used to be.
Narrator: So he sold off his herd and bought 600 goats.
Brian: Right now, we're milking a total of 810.
We can milk almost 400 an hour.
Narrator: And they're planning on expanding to 1,500 goats
in the next year and a half.
The milk is sold to Vermont Creamery,
which turns it into cheese.
Brian made the switch just as the pandemic hit.
In early 2020, disruptions to supply chains
and closures to restaurants and hotels
forced many farms to dump their milk.
But even as they recover,
dairy farmers still face a tough market.
Some blame competition from plant-based milks.
Sam: As far as I'm concerned,
there should not even be the word "milk" on the carton.
There is zero dairy in it.
Narrator: The market for dairy alternatives was valued at
$18.5 billion in 2018,
and it's projected to grow to
over $37 billion by 2025.
It's not nearly as big as the dairy industry,
but that doesn't change the fact that milk
just isn't the go-to drink anymore.
Tastes and preferences of consumers have just changed.
Narrator: Research also now estimates
that 68% of adults globally can't properly digest dairy.
But it's not all over for milk,
because Americans are eating more cheese than ever.
Mark: We're eating our dairy. We aren't drinking it now.
Narrator: Americans ate 40 pounds
of cheese per person in 2020,
almost double the amount
eaten in 1980.
Mark: I think that that future is bright
from the standpoint of consumption.
Narrator: But even the production of cheese outpaces demand.
The USDA purchased $20 million of cheddar cheese in 2016
to reduce record-high private surpluses.
Now, five years later, the government still has
nearly 1.5 billion pounds of cheese in storage,
almost 50% more than when the stockpile
reached crisis levels in the '80s.
So how long can the US government keep supporting
an industry that is producing more dairy than we need?
And what happens when that support
still isn't enough for small farms?