This story was originally published byGrist.
For the past year and a half, you may have heard a lot about butter.
By early March,New York Magazine could declarethat butter has become the main character.
A butter charcuterie board with fresh herbs.Photo: Via Grist (Getty Images)
What accounts for butters spectacular renaissance in American cuisine?
According to the U.S. dairy industry, its their own public relations campaign that started the spread.
Dairy Management has even funded research to help improve McDonaldsnotoriously glitchy milkshake machines.
‘The Office’ actor Brian Baumgartner poses for a 2023 promotional photo for “Never Doubt What You Love,” a pro-dairy parody news campaign created by the California Milk Processor Board.Photo: Rachel Murray for CMPB (Getty Images)
Thirty years after the era-defining Got Milk?
However, as dairy consumption and production continue to grow, so too does the industrys environmental footprint.
AUnited Nations reportfound that the dairy sectors global greenhouse gas emissions rose by 18 percent between 2005 and 2015.
Meanwhile, its not entirely clear that all these efforts are helping the average dairy farmer.
(Eggs have their own $20 million program.)
Farmer contributions to the national program totaled $124.5 million in 2021.
The Dairy Board in turn sends money to Dairy Management Inc.
The Fluid Milk Board received $82.4 million in processor fees in 2021.
Its marketing arm is called MilkPEP.
As a result, the industry takes care to note its accomplishments.
Other promotional efforts, however, have amounted to slickly-produced flops.
Some recent industry-funded persuasion campaigns have been more subtle.
A spokesperson for MilkPEP told Grist that these were branded editorial contracts to develop milk-inclusive recipe content.
Theres some evidence that all this marketing has worked.
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Youre not allowed to talk about price, youre not allowed to talk about supply.
Its a wasted effort.
The local infrastructure has struggled to contend with the waste produced by all those additional cows.
We have massive water quality issues, she told Grist.
Its a real crisis right now on all the legs of sustainability: ecologically, socially, economically.
A similar model has functioned in Canada for decades.
Each year, annual dairy demand is forecasted based on the previous years sales figures.
The resulting estimate is divided among provincial boards, which in turn distribute production quotas to individual farmers.
To maintain this delicate balance, Canada prevents an influx of cheap imported milk using high tariffs.
In part for this reason, the system is not without controversy.
Still, the system has enough admirers that some are hoping it will be adopted in the U.S.
The bill would establish price minimums and quota-like production bases for farmers.
Nevertheless, Tovar is clear-eyed about the bills likelihood of passage, at least in the near term.
In the meantime, the dairy checkoff has set its sights on the export market.
The New Yorker was subsequently rolled out in Taiwan.
The checkoff, she wrote, was engaging with Chick-fil-A, Raising Canes, and McDonalds to change that.
This article originally appeared inGristathttps://grist.org/food/butter-board-viral-dairy-lobby/.
Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future.
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