Not all milk is created equal. There can be worlds of difference between one type of milk and another. And we're not talking about taste, fat content, or price, but about its impact on our environment.
In our cafes, more than 70% of coffee drinks are prepared with milk. That's about six times more milk than coffee. For this reason alone, milk is just as much a focus for us as coffee.
Should we drink milk? This question is suitable for initiating an extensive ethical discussion. This article will focus less on ethics, animal welfare, or nutritional physiology (further links can be found at the end of the article) and more on climate impact.
To this end, we want to present two perspectives. One leads to the conclusion that cows are climate killers. The other paints a different picture. But why does cow's milk have such a high social status in the first place, and why is the climate impact of cows so high in terms of global emissions?
What is Milk?
Milk is always produced when a mammal has offspring. No offspring, no milk. If we drink milk other than human breast milk, we are always drinking the milk of an infant. So, no lamb, no sheep's milk; no puppy, no dog's milk; no baby, no mother's milk; and no calf, no milk. Cow's milk is so important <1> that it is the only milk that can be referred to simply as "milk" without specifying the animal species. This is also legally enshrined: within the EU, only milk from cows may be labeled as "milk" in trade.
After suckling (nursing), lactase production normally stops in all mammals. Without lactase, milk proteins can no longer be broken down, and thus milk can no longer be processed by the body. Humans are the exception. We are the only mammals that can still consume milk and dairy products after infancy. Approximately one-third of the world's population is now lactose intolerant. How did this come about?
A new study explains that the keeping of farm animals began with sedentary life. However, milk was reserved for offspring. Especially during famines, people were then forced to resort to animal milk. In times of malnutrition and scarcity, intolerances usually led to death, and thus the "lactose-tolerant" prevailed. In this way, cattle gradually transitioned from working animals to farm animals.
From the 1960s onwards, the term "factory farming," as we know it today, was first used. At the time, the term promised food security and had a positive connotation.
Currently, there are approximately 950 million cattle <2>, of which about 260 million are dairy cows <3>. Per capita, milk consumption in Germany was 46.1 kg in 2022. (The trend is downwards) <4>.
Status Quo
A glance at the list of the most climate-damaging foods shows that the top three spots go to cows: butter, beef, and dairy products (cream, milk, and cheese). <5>. It is therefore logical to conclude that a world without cows would be better.
The Dairy System
Conventionally produced milk (and dairy products) perform particularly poorly in terms of climate impact. This is because the cultivation of concentrated feed, most of which is imported from overseas, causes deforestation there and releases large quantities of stored carbon. The monocultures established require large amounts of fertilizers. Fertilizer production is resource-intensive and generates large quantities of CO₂. When these are applied, significant amounts of nitrous oxide can be produced. (Nitrous oxide is particularly harmful as it has a global warming potential 300 times higher than CO₂). The transport of concentrated feed to Europe generates further CO₂. With the transported plants, the stored nitrogen also arrives in Europe and over-fertilizes the fields in the form of cow manure. This leads to leaching in cultivation and over-fertilization in Europe. Both lead to measures that result in more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. A vicious cycle for soils and the climate.
In addition, the cow itself produces large quantities of methane (approx. 550 L per day, methane is in turn approx. 28x more harmful to the climate than CO₂) during food processing. Thus, the methane emissions of "the cow" were responsible for approx. 48% of agricultural emissions in Germany in 2022.<6>
Depending on the farming method, this results in 0.9 kg CO2e (ecological pasture farming, with allocation of meat sales) to 1.64 kg CO2e (conventional farming without grazing, without allocation) in Germany <7> however, the global average is 2.4 kg CO2e per liter of milk <8>.
The emissions (global average) are approximately equivalent to the emissions produced by burning one liter of gasoline. (Tank-to-wheel consideration → i.e., only the combustion, without extraction)
Is 1 liter of milk as harmful as 1 liter of gasoline?
Are there solutions?
There are various approaches, from increasing milk yield to feed additives that reduce methane emissions. <9>
One solution would be to increase milk yield while maintaining the same methane emissions. 100 years ago, a cow's milk yield was approximately 2000 liters per year; today, it is about 8000 liters. (These are values for cows bred for milk production. For dual-purpose breeds, the values are lower. For our dairy farmer, for example, the cows give about 4000L per year.) If one applies the daily methane emissions of a cow, approx. 550 L (which in turn corresponds to ~400 g) to the annual milk yield. * The milk from 100 years ago had a footprint of 2.05 kg CO₂ equivalents, compared to 0.51 kg CO2e today. If feed additives are added, promising a methane reduction of one third, it would only be 0.34 kg CO2e. This would correspond to a reduction of almost 84%. However, a common mistake in this consideration is that only the output is considered.
The cow from 100 years ago most likely only ate grass from the pasture, whereas today's cow needs to be given the concentrated feed described above to achieve such performance. The feed additives also need to be produced, processed, shipped, and added to the feed.
Is the cow from 100 years ago probably more sustainable? And is the solution perhaps not in technical progress, but in the farming method?
The Climate Killer… or not?
In many considerations, the cow is viewed as a milking machine, and its emissions are also allocated to the final product like those of machines. These machines can be optimized, output can be increased, and emissions can be reduced. All technical optimization for a living being. We would like to present another perspective.
Change of perspective
Every human emits CO₂, just as cows metabolize their food and emit CO₂ (and also methane). This may only be a small part (between 168 and 2040 kilograms of carbon dioxide per year; <10>
Comparison of CO₂ equivalents of methane from dairy cows and CO₂ from humanity
Assumption 1: 8 billion people; each emits an average of 1.1 tons of CO₂ per year through their breathing
Assumption 2: 260 million dairy cows; each emits about 400g of methane per day; the greenhouse effect of methane is 28x higher than that of CO₂. Thus, the average CO2e emission is 4.1 tons of CO₂ due to methane excretion.
Accordingly, humanity emits 8.8 billion tons of CO₂, while dairy cows emit "only" 1.07 billion tons of CO2e through their methane emissions. (If cattle from meat production are also included, the emissions would be 14.98 billion tons of CO2e)
(The breathing of cows and the methane emissions of humans are missing here)
Both our breathing and the methane emissions of cows are part of the carbon cycle. Methane breaks down into CO₂ and hydrogen. This CO₂ is absorbed by plants, which store the carbon and release oxygen back into the atmosphere.
Cows provide us with proteins and carbohydrates that would otherwise be unavailable to us. We can digest corn and soy ourselves, but not grasses.
Where do we get our milk from?
We source our milk from Jonas Plattner. He runs a small-scale organic dairy farm in Reigoldswil, Switzerland.
The Farm
- Jonas lets his cows graze on 30 hectares of land
- He owns 15 cows and 1 bull
The Cows
- The cows are a dual-purpose breed: they produce less milk but a little more meat when they are old
- Jonas' cows live to be about 15 years old, which is very old in milk production
- the bull is part of the cow herd
- the cows are milked twice a day, totaling about 10 liters per cow
- in one week, the cows produce about 900 liters
The Food
- The cows eat only grass, and hay in winter
- Concentrated feed like soy or corn is not used; Jonas also avoids silage
The Farming Method Makes the Difference - Regenerative Agriculture
We all know that trees bind CO₂. But much more important for our climate are soils: forest soils, meadows, and moors. Technical solutions in the fight against global warming imitate what nature has already solved.
With factory farming, more and more animals were kept on less and less land. This allowed the remaining land to be used for growing fodder. However, as described, this leads to leaching in one place and over-fertilization in another.
But if cattle return to the pastures, they can provide additional carbon sequestration and make these pastures, which are unsuitable as arable land, available for human nutrition. For ideal carbon sequestration, they must be kept in small grazing areas at short intervals, so that grazing and fertilization with cow manure can occur in this small area (Mob Grazing). Afterwards, this area remains undisturbed for a certain period to recover. This promotes root growth before the cattle are allowed to graze on it again.
No grassland without grazers.
If you factor in the carbon sequestration that can arise in this way against the emissions, the overall balance of cows looks completely different. Unfortunately, there are few studies on this. One of them is from "White Oak Pastures," <11> which concludes that for every kg of meat, approximately 1.6 kg of CO₂ is stored in the soil.
Conclusion
Back to milk. We have it in our own hands; we can choose for our home needs: Do we support the status quo, opt for alternatives like oat milk, or choose the regenerative option? Two out of three options tend to have positive climate effects. That sounds good, doesn't it? (The fact is, however, that the real proportion is (still) small.)
In Germany, there are around 100 farms that not only produce milk regeneratively but also practice suckler cow husbandry. The special thing about this is that the calves grow up with their mothers and are allowed to drink first, and people take what is "left over". Organic milk accounts for about 3.5% of all produced milk, of which about 2% is from mother-calf rearing. <12>
As citizens, we reject factory farming, but as consumers, not yet.
Further Links:
- TED Talk Allan Savory
-
TED Talk Bobby Gill
- Farm Rebellion on Disney+ - Trailer
- NDR Green Garage - Beef Enjoyment without a Guilty Conscience?
- The Milk System on Netflix - Trailer
- ARTE Documentary: What else can we eat?
Books
- The Cow is Not a Climate Killer! - Anita Idel
- Rebels of the Earth: How We Save the Soil - and Ourselves! - Benedikt Bösel
- Holistic Management Handbook - Allan Savory
Sources:
<1> cf.: statista.com, Milk - Germany, Status: 28.09.23
<2> cf.: https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/28931/umfrage/weltweiter-rinderbestand-seit-1990/, Status: 28.09.23
<3> cf.: agrarheute.de, Dairy farming XXL: Herd size grows worldwide , Status: 28.09.23
<4> cf.: tagesschau.de, Why Germans drink less milk, Status: 28.09.23
<5> cf.: utopia.de, These 6 foods are worst for the climate , Status: 28.09.23
<6> cf.: umweltbundesamt.de, Agriculture's contribution to greenhouse gas emissions, Status: 28.09.23
<7> cf.: umweltbundesamt, Visibility of hidden environmental costs of agriculture using the example of milk production systems, Status: 28.09.23
<8> cf.: bauernverband.de, Methane emissions in cattle farming, Status: 28.09.23
<9> cf.: dsm.com, The proven solution for methane reduction, Status: 28.09.23
<10> cf.: co2online.de, How much CO2 does man breathe out, Status: 28.09.23
<11> cf.: whiteoakpastures.com, Study: White Oak Pastures Beef Reduces Atmospheric Carbon , Status: 28.09.23
<12> cf.: ardmediathek.de, Content , Status: 28.09.23
