[subculture]

These folksy farmers pretend like they're part of rich heritage of humanity - the dairy farmer through the ages supplying people with a healthy and necessary drink. Dairy production is just another demand created in the modern world by marketers and little to do with actual nutrition [1].

The dairy farmers in this article try to portray a peaceful relationship between farmer and cow, yet 99% of dairy in the US is produced in factory farms quite different from idyllic pastures [2]. More like what we're seeing in China with multi-story pig farms [3].

I think economics, environment and consumer behavior could easily wipe out the dairy industry, except that it's an integral part of food/industrial production. You obvs don't have a cheese industry without dairy, but you also don't have a source of male cows for the veal industry, a source of bones and other parts for the myriad other uses like adhesives, filtration (bone char filtration makes sugar white [4]), chemicals, textiles, etc.

[1] https://www.vox.com/2015/4/19/8447883/milk-health-benefit [2] https://www.livekindly.co/99-animal-products-factory-farms/ [3] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/18/a-12-sto... [4] https://www.journalofnaturalmedicine.com/sugar-companies-tha...