Perhaps no one represented the American work ethic more than the dairy farmer. Early morning hours and hard physical labor, often conducted in solitude while ankle deep in muck. Families working together to get the job done. They have long proudly supplied a demand for their community, and like most farmers, are clearly not in it for the money.

Today however, the American dairy farmer also represents the frustration and economic hardship evident across our nation. Increasing volatility in the price of milk paid to farmers, higher feed costs, corporate consolidation in the supply chain, organic milk farms scaling up, and questionable government policies all have farmers shedding a few tears. The life is so unappealing that the number of American families remaining in milk farming has plummeted from roughly 165,000 20 years ago, to less than 50,000 today.

Behind the innocent glass of milk lies an intriguing story that’s not so black and white: Many farmers are losing money, organic milk is in short supply,  anti-trust lawsuits have been filed, and legislative reform is on the agenda. Farmers, processors, distributors, and retailers are engaged in conversations like never before. And cows. Don’t forget about the cows.

Please join us for the next Kitchen Table Talks in San Francisco on Tuesday, February 21 from 6:30 – 8:30 pm at 18 Reasons, as we discuss the current state of the organic dairy industry.

When: Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Time: Food and drink at 6:30. Discussion from 7 – 8:30 pm
Where: 18 Reasons (3674 18th St., San Francisco, 94110)
Tickets: $10 Brown Paper Tickets. NOTE: A limited number of sliding scale tickets will be available on a first come, first serve basis at 7 pm on the night of the event.

Joining us in conversation will be:

Leslie Butler, Department of Agricultural Economics at U.C. Davis. Leslie holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from Michigan State University. He regularly testifies at state and national hearings regarding dairy policy, and has published numerous articles on dairy production and economics marketing and policy.

Mike Griffin, West Region Pool Manager, Organic Valley. Mike was born and raised in Petaluma, CA. After his first year of college, he began his journey into farming, and never looked back. His vast  experience over 30 years at Clover Stornetta as a truck driver, distribution foreman, plant manager and in public relations, ultimately led him to Organic Valley in 2011, the nation’s largest cooperative of organic farmers.

Richard Hughes, owner Westfield Jersey’s in Bodega, CA. Richard was a self-proclaimed “city boy,” until he turned 15 and a 4-H project began his life long journey and commitment to dairy farming.  In 1976, Richard and his wife purchased a 182-acre ranch just outside of Bodega. They currently have around 100 Jersey cows, have completed the transition to organic farming, and provide milk to Straus Family Creamery.

Bob McGee, CFO/COO Straus Family Creamery, Marshall, CA.

Kitchen Table Talks is a joint venture of Civil Eats and 18 Reasons, a non-profit that promotes conversation between its San Francisco Mission neighborhood and the people who feed them. Space is limited, so please RSVP. Seasonal snacks and refreshments generously provided by Bi-Rite Market and Shoe Shine Wine.

Flavored milk has come under scrutiny as more people, including school food activist and chef Jamie Oliver and his Food Revolution, have implicated it in the childhood obesity debate. (UPDATE: In fact, thanks to Oliver’s work, flavored milk is no longer a choice as of July 1 in LA schools.) Yet many in the mainstream health and nutrition media maintain that it is a weight loss and muscle building “super food.”

Take for example, this article by Men’s Health editor-in-chief titled, “The Chocolate Milk Diet,” which recently made the rounds on my Facebook feed. He writes, “If your teacher gave you chocolate milk as a lunchtime treat, she was (unknowingly) giving you one of the most powerful weight-loss tools in the nutritional universe.”

While foods that offer a combination of fiber, fat, and protein can help satiate with fewer calories, no food inherently produces weight loss. And yet despite the dairy industry’s fervent claim that three servings of dairy a day can aid in weight loss, the scientific evidence is scarce at best [PDF], as evidenced by this meta-analysis published in Nutrition Reviews in 2008.

Most perplexing however, is how a beverage made with added sugar (which are empty calories, providing absolutely no nutrition) can somehow be touted as a powerful weight-loss tool. Three eight-ounce servings of chocolate milk–an amount that meets the suggested amount of daily dairy servings–contribute 36 grams of added sugar. That’s four grams shy of a 12-ounce can of Coca-Cola,and as much added sugar as 12 Dunkin’ Donuts cinnamon cake Munchkins (donut holes). Plain and simple, you’re looking at 144 empty calories.  The fact that schools serve non-fat chocolate milk is irrelevant; we are increasingly seeing a higher amount of scientific research linking high added sugar intake with increased heart disease risk.

It isn’t simply pop-health magazines promoting chocolate milk, many accredited health professionals have gone on record declaring their love for it as well.  In an article titled “Nutrition Experts Applaud Chocolate Milk As A Good-For-You Treat,” Registered Dietitian Liz Weiss describes chocolate milk as “a nutrient-packed form of chocolate that always seems to satisfy. Plus, chocolate milk is such a better alternative than sugar-filled sodas and fruit drinks that contain little or no nutrients.”

The cocoa used in commercial chocolate milk is alkalized, meaning that the high amounts of the healthful antioxidants and polyphenols naturally found in cocoa are stripped away. In order to reap the many health benefits of chocolate, it must be consumed in a minimally processed form.  As if that wasn’t bad enough, a tablespoon of sugar then goes into each eight-ounce serving of chocolate milk.  The now-familiar argument that chocolate milk is a better alternative to sugar-filled sodas is quite weak, considering that sugar-filled sodas are nutritionally void.  You’d be hard-pressed to find a beverage that is a worse alternative to soda.

Weiss goes on to say, “Flavored milks provide the same nine essential nutrients and benefits as unflavored milks; the main difference is the added sugar, but the amount is significantly less than what you’d find in soft drinks–and if it helps kids get their milk, that’s a good thing.”
The nine essential nutrients she refers to are: Calcium, vitamin D, protein, potassium, vitamin A, vitamin B-12, riboflavin, niacin and phosphorus.  All of these nutrients are found in other foods, yet, much of the fervent chocolate milk propaganda makes it seem as if chocolate milk is the only way children can incorporate them into their diet.

Dairy enthusiasts, including [PDF] the United States Department of Agriculture often make the claim that dairy foods offer the most reliably absorbable calcium.  Alas, that mantra is absolutely false. A 1990 study from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition shows that the calcium in kale is more absorbable than from milk. And, this 1994 study also published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition shows that broccoli, brussels sprouts, and mustard greens offer a higher percentage of absorbable calcium than milk. Besides, the focus on calcium is myopic, as there are many other nutrients–many of which are not found in milk–that are crucial for bone health and development.

The best thing chocolate milk has going for it is a multi-million dollar marketing campaign and relentless lobbying power. The Milk Processors Education Board–behind the 18-year-old “Got Milk?” advertisements as well as “Body By Milk” and “Refuel with Chocolate Milk”–has spent roughly $70 million each year just for advertisements.

Nutritionally misleading and inaccurate statements aside (“without milk in your diet, it’s difficult to get the recommended amounts of nutrients you need”), all the campaigns hinge on body image, with mentions of “looking your best” and “maintaining a healthy weight” peddled by airbrushed celebrities who often times display taut arms and chiseled abs. These advertisements–and hyped-up journalism like the one mentioned at the beginning of this article–simply propagate the longstanding “milk is nature’s perfect beverage” myth, which has a lot more to do with sleek public relations and very little to do with nutrition science.

Often times, these debates turn into a “vegan” vs. “omnivore” battle, which distracts from the core issue.  This goes beyond the question of whether it is ethically “right” or “wrong” to drink a beverage that is an animal byproduct.  Rather, it has to do with the fact that misleading and incorrect nutritional information is presented as objective fact.  As a soon-to-be Registered Dietitian, I am fed up with self-proclaimed experts who ultimately confuse the general public with erroneous nutrition claims that read like industry propaganda. Perhaps even more troubling, I am flabbergasted at the many individuals with the “right credentials” who continue to parrot the Dairy Council’s so-called facts, despite the scientific evidence that disproves them.

While dairy milk is not an essential beverage, it can have a place in a healthy diet.  That said, flavored milk is–as school lunch activist Ann Cooper puts it–”soda in drag” and should not be served daily to children at school or touted as a superfood to everyone else.

While organic dairy farmers have faced a decrease in overall sales due to the recent world financial meltdown and tight budgets on the home front as a result, the current drop in milk prices is impacting mainly conventional and small to mid-size family dairy farmers — the worst crisis most dairy farmers have faced in their entire careers.

Without immediate action from President Obama, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack and members of Congress, this current crisis could be the launching point for the final liquidation of the independent family farmer.

Plunge in Milk Prices + High Costs of Production = Final Liquidation

According to the USDA, the average cost of production for milk is $24.08 per hundredweight (cwt or 100 pounds), while the price dairy farmers were paid for their milk in April sunk to $10.78 cwt.

This means that dairy farmers are earning less than half of what it costs to produce their milk. Imagine having your salary cut in half and still trying to cover the same monthly bills. Even worse, feed and fuel prices are starting to go up in the past few months.

For farmers, most of whom work too long of hours and are paid too little money, this is the perfect formula for a final liquidation of one of the last remaining independent segments of ag production. For years, small and medium-sized farms have relied on their dairy cows to stay relatively free from domination by factory farms and corporate agribusiness. But no longer.

The Past Revisits the Future – 1998 Eight-Cent Hogs

What we are witnessing today with dairy farmers has happened before and is part of a historic trend that must not be allowed to continue. As Chris Petersen, President of Iowa Farmers Union and an Iowa family hog farmer, said recently, “First they consolidated the turkeys and chickens, then the hogs and now they’re coming after dairy.”

Petersen spoke at a rally for dairy farmers held on May 30th in Manchester, Iowa, where some 150 family dairy farmers from across the country gathered at a small town livestock exchange, some traveling from as far away as New York and Pennsylvania, in an effort to draw attention to the ongoing crisis.

As a hog farmer who survived the 1980’s farm crisis, Peterson is painfully familiar with the impacts that industrialized agriculture and consolidation have had on family farmers and rural America.

For many Iowans, the current crisis in dairy is eerily reminiscent of 1998, when prices hog farmers were paid for hogs dropped to 8 cents a pound, virtually wiping out an entire generation of hog farmers during a single market downturn.

In 1997, the year before the crash, there were over 122,000 hog farmers across the U.S. Today less than 65,000 remain. In Iowa, the nation’s leading hog producer, there were over 18,000 hog farmers in 1997, while less than 8,300 exist today, with most animals in this sector now raised in confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) or factory farms.

For those who missed the consolidation of livestock in the 1950’s and 1960’s when it happened to the chicken growers, and then the 1980’s and 1990’s when they came for the hogs, this year will be the final sell-off of the family dairy farmer. The final sector reliant on livestock will at last be captured.

In addition, the industry trend towards animal confinement that has taken off in the past decade in dairy will increase significantly if these small and mid-sized farmers are allowed to fail.

Increasing consolidation in the dairy industry has also played a factor in the current crisis, creating an uncompetitive market for dairy farmers. Just one cooperative, Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) controls 40% of milk produced in the U.S., severely limiting competitive pricing for farmers. But not only does DFA have undue market power, they also have a history of market manipulation and were fined $12 million last year manipulating the milk prices in the commodities market.

U.S. Faces Catastrophic Loss of Dairy Farmers in 2009

Leading farm advocacy groups such as Farm Aid and the National Family Farm Coalition are estimating the potential loss of 20,000 family dairy farmers as a result of the current milk crisis. If action isn’t taken soon in Washington DC, America could lose up to 30% of U.S. dairy farmers — possibly more — as they strain under the monthly cost of debts, which are piling up each month.

Meanwhile, banks have already started cutting off farmer’s access to loans across the country and have increasingly begun seizing herds when farmers can’t make payments.

In a phone call received last week, one farmer told how a neighboring dairy farmer in eastern Iowa had lost his farm. The 550 head family dairy farm was seized last month, forcing a father and his two sons off the farm. Only five years ago, the father had expanded their operation so he could eventually turn the farm over to his sons. Now that dream is gone. To make matters worse, the bank seized the last trailer full of cows on a Friday and the youngest son got married the following day, a wedding that turned from a celebration into a tragedy.

The same farmer who related this story said that he had received a call from his banker who was coming to visit his farm the next day, with no reason given. The farmer said he was current on his payments, but wasn’t sure if his credit would be cut off like it had to several dairy farmers he knew across Iowa.

Stories like this are becoming increasingly common in rural America, especially in dairy country – states like California, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Wisconsin.

The loss of so many family dairy farms could launch the next Great Depression for rural America’s economies. As farmers are forced off the land once again, as they were in the 1980s, the businesses and communities that rely on them stand to lose their tax and customer base.

Crashing the Farmer’s Price for Free Trade

While cyclical problems of supply and demand and have caused numerous market collapses in the past, a closer look at the dairy crisis exposes deeper fundamental problems in the dairy sector.

Currently the chattering political class in Washington DC keep repeating the line that the current crisis is due to “overproduction,” but an inspection of dairy imports and exports tells a different story

A recent post from John Bunting, a New York dairy farmer who writes for Milkweed and runs, tallied the imports of milk protein concentrate or MPC and found a record increase in imports in the first quarter of 2009. Between January and March of this year imports of milk protein concentrates (MPCs), not including casein and other dairy products, increased a whopping 24.59% according to the USDA Foreign Agricultural Services.

MPCs are broken-down proteins and fats created by milk being processed at high temperatures and contain tasty things like bacteria and somatic cells. More problematic are the fact that MPCs are considered a glue additive and while not actually approved as a food additive by the FDA, Bunting calls them “technically an illegal ingredient,” can be found in such things as baby formulas, sports drinks, yogurt, pizza and ice cream.

If that doesn’t sound too bad then remember that these foreign milk-like substances are coming from China, India and a host of other countries that don’t have very stringent food safety regulations. Think milk from China, melamine in baby formula, etc – not a good strategy for food safety.

Another interesting trend pointed out by Bunting is the loss of dairy exports by the U.S. during the first quarter 2009, totally over $638 million over the same quarter in 2008. On top of this, Leslie Hatfield reports over at the Huffington Post that according to the National Milk Producers Federation dairy imports into the U.S. “have risen from $80 million to almost $3 billion in the last 10 years.”

So if we have record imports of milk products that compete against our own farmers on their sales in the U.S. and then they have a net loss approaching a billion dollars in trade that takes away from further potential sales, plus a massive increase in imports over the past 10 years, then what we really don’t have is a “surplus” of milk – but a serious trade deficit when it comes to milk products that is pushing American’s dairy farmers to the brink this year.

Additionally, for the month of March, Bunting reports that dairy exports fell by 32.9%. Even with Vilsack’s recent implementation of the new dairy export program, it’s hard to imagine making up that $638 million in time to save the thousands of dairy farmers that will be forced to shut down their barns by the end of this year.

Loss of Family Dairy Farms = Death of Rural America’s Economies

It’s estimated that dairy farmers are currently losing up to $200 per cow, per month. Since dairy processing and dairy farms have one of the largest economic multipliers of any segment in agriculture, with each cow generating $17,000 per year in economic development in the form of jobs, goods and services created, the loss of a single 85 head dairy farm will drain a local economy of nearly $1.5 million in economic activity.

For the eastern Iowa county that lost a 550 head dairy farm last month, that’s $9.4 million flushed out of the local economy forever.

Unfortunately, the number of dairy farms being forced out of business is just beginning. In the next few months, as more banks cut off additional loans to farmers, these numbers are going to climb to record levels for the dairy industry.

A recent conversation with a dairy industry worker revealed the loss of 10 additional dairies across Iowa in the last 6 weeks – totaling another 3,060 dairy cows or $52 million erased from small town local economies across the state.

And while $52 million is chump change for Wall Street banks, which are churning through government bailout cash faster than a five-legged mule, losing a third of U.S. dairy farms this year will be catastrophic for our rural communities.

For people who are having a hard time understanding how bad this will be: This could be rural America’s last stand for independent family farm agriculture. Increasingly, family farmers, rural Americans and farm advocates are pleading with President Obama, Secretary Vilsack and Iowa’s Senator Tom Harkin to do something about it before it’s too late.

Every day, every delay, costs America another farmer. And our farmers are not a renewable resource that can be grown and planted in a single season.

If up to 30 percent of dairy farmers are forced to go into foreclosure, the U.S. could see over 3.1 million of the nation’s 9.3 dairy cows sold off and potentially liquidated. A quick calculation shows the current dairy crisis, if allowed to continue, will blow a $52.7 billion hole in rural America’s economy – most likely more, as the ripple effect will send a shockwave through small towns and businesses across the country.

Rural America is Too Big to Fail

While Senators and Congressmen lined up in Washington during the past year to offer Wall Street a sweetheart deal for making a mess of the U.S. and global economy — erasing a lifetime of earnings for tens of millions of investors because of years of excessive greed — and then reluctantly bailed out Detroit for the sins of auto execs, politicians have done relatively little to help dairy farmers who are facing the crisis of a century.

Sure, Secretary Vilsack has made several small attempts to jumpstart the system, with a few stopgap measures, including $150 million in Milk Income Loss Contract (MILC) payments — which provided farmers who previously signed up for the program a meager $1.51 per cwt subsidy; the USDA’s March purchase of 200 million pounds of surplus nonfat dry milk for use in domestic feeding programs; and a recent use of the Dairy Export Incentive Program (DEIP) to subsidize 92,000 tons of dairy products destined for overseas. However, these steps have done almost nothing to stem the tide.

Unfortunately, none of these actions have translated into higher milk prices. Most U.S. dairy farmers see these attempts as worse than the usual band-aids farmers have been thrown in the past because it allows politicians to pretend they’ve actually solved the crisis when really it’s getting worse every day.

Conversations with dozens of dairy farmers from across the country reveal that the government MILC checks are barely able to cover costs of electricity, let alone feed bills, which have grown by up to 10 percent in the past four weeks.

“We’re not asking for a bailout, we’re just ask for a fair price,” says Jerry Harvey, a third generation Iowa dairy farmer who milks 70 cows in Promise City, Iowa.

And as many farmers across the country are now saying, if Washington thinks there are banks too big to fail, wait until Americans have to rely on food from foreign countries, which have much looser food safety regulations, to feed their families.

All these farmers are asking for is a fair price for the food they produce for American consumers, it’s time some folks in Washington start putting their heads together for a sustainable solution. The cost of failure for America’s dairy farmer is not something the U.S. can afford.

Today a broad array of 29 farmers, consumer groups, businesses and other organizations sent a letter to Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, President Obama’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, urging her to veto HR 2121, a bill passed by the Kansas State Legislature last week which would require an additional disclaimer on labels for dairy products produced from cows not treated with recombinant bovine growth hormone (rbGH or rbST), a genetically engineered, artificial hormone that induces cows to produce more milk. (To read more about the problem with rbGH, check out this earlier Civil Eats post.) The bill was sent yesterday to Governor Sebelius, who has ten days to veto it.

“Since the FDA’s controversial decision to approve the use of rbGH, questions have only grown about its safety for humans,” said Dr. Michael Hansen, Senior Scientist for Food Safety for Consumers Union. “HR 2121 interferes with consumers’ right to know what is in their food and how it’s produced and farmers and dairies have the right to tell them.” Consumers Union sent a similar letter to Sebelius urging her to veto the bill.

The required disclaimer would read: “the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has determined there are no significant differences between milk from cows that receive injections of the artificial hormone and milk from those that do not.” That statement is based on an 18-year-old FDA review; however, FDA’s own publications, as well as subsequent scientific studies have shown that there are significant differences, some of which may affect human health. The Kansas bill also goes against long-established Federal policy as outlined by the FDA in a July 27, 1994 letter to New York Department of Agriculture and Markets: “The bottom line is that a contextual statement is not required…and in no instance is the specific statement ‘No significant difference has been shown…’ required by FDA.”

In addition, the Legislature tacked on the dairy labeling rules of HB 2295 as a rider on HB 2121 without a hearing in the Senate Agriculture Committee. This denied the numerous opponents of labeling restrictions the chance to testify. Even with the lack of proper debate, the bill barely passed the Senate by a 22-15 vote, just two votes short of failing, demonstrating that there is barely a mandate for labeling changes in Kansas.

“As she reviews this bill, and ascends to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, we urge Governor Sebelius to veto this bill, protect the health of Kansas’ citizens, and to leave a legacy of support for the public interest, not special interests,” said Patty Lovera, Assistant Director at Food & Water Watch.

Due to growing consumer demand, companies are removing rbGH from their dairy products across the country. In addition, over 160 hospitals all over the country have pledged to serve rbGH-free products and the past president of the American Medical Association said in a letter to all AMA members that hospitals should serve only milk produced without rbGH.

“Kansas is taking a step in the wrong direction, as more than half of the 100 largest dairy processors in the country have gone partially or completely rbGH-free to satisfy consumer demand,” said Heather Whitehead, True Food Network Director at the Center for Food Safety. “If dairies decide not to label milk as rbGH-free due to these unnecessary labeling requirements, or decide not to sell their products in Kansas, citizens will be denied the chance to make informed choices about what kind of dairy products to buy.”

Local retailers are also concerned about the effects of the labeling requirements. “We hope that Governor Sebelius will veto HB 2121 which could create a financial hardship for the state’s mid-sized and small dairy producers and retailers, and could raise barriers to interstate commerce,” said Devrin Forte, Store Manager at Topeka Natural Foods.

Food & Water Watch and Center for Food Safety both have action alerts so you can tell Governor Sebelius that consumers have the right to know what’s in the milk, and dairies have a right to tell them.

Photo: PapaC1

With the Child Nutrition Act (CNA) set for renewal this year, Food & Water Watch (F&WW) last month launched a School Milk Campaign asking Congress to give schools nationwide the opportunity to buy milk that is free of artificial growth hormones. Their online petition has already generated 8,000 signatures.

CNA authorizes the National School Lunch Program, providing schools with reimbursements for food purchases like fluid milk and supplying schools with surplus foods, like butter, cheese, ground beef and grains. According to the National Milk Producers Federation, nearly 430 million gallons of milk were distributed to schools during the 2005-2006 school year.

Roughly 15 percent of U.S. dairies inject cows with the synthetic growth hormone called rbGH (or recombinant bovine growth hormone) that increases milk production. According to F&WW, it’s possible that at least 84 million gallons of milk from rbGH-treated cows were distributed through the school nutrition program during 2005-2006—or about 1 in 5 pints of milk offered in school cafeterias nationwide.

rbGH has been linked to increased rates of infections in dairy cows, elevated antibiotic use, and unresolved questions about its links to serious human health risks, including cancer. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and all 25 members of the European Union have banned the use of rbGH, and the Codex Alimentarius, the United Nations’ main food safety body, twice decided that it could not endorse the safety of rbGH for human health.

Growing consumer concern has brought changes in the marketplace as major dairies and milk producers and retailers, such as Wal-Mart and Kroger, have made a commitment to go rbGH-free. Universities, institutions and hospitals are making the change as well, and schools are the next logical step.

F&WW is working on legislation that will make it easier for schools to purchase milk produced without rBGH. Right now, schools are required to accept the lowest bid on a milk contract that meets the school’s specs and food service buyers often don’t realize that they can specifically request rBGH-free milk in the bid. This legislation will clarify that they have this option. Often times the current choices are not always the most nutritious, as public schools receive just $1.13 per child per lunch in federal funding; some states contribute additional funds, but many do not, leaving school food service directors to “squeeze water from a stone.”

“This is not promoting luxury milk,” said Noelle Ferdon, Senior Organizer for the Food Program at F&WW, which recognizes that many school districts are already cash-strapped. “This is a no-cost administrative change in the CNA that would help schools make choices that respond to the needs of students, parents and communities. rBGH-free milk is now cost competitive in the marketplace in large part because of consumer and retailer preference for this milk.”

Many school districts have been able to procure rbGH-free milk—in fact several school districts have built rbGH-free milk into their nutrition or wellness policies—but many districts don’t know they have the option to specify the type of milk they want to buy. As long as standard competitiveness procedures are followed, F&WW wants school food services to have the option to procure milk from cows not treated with this controversial artificial growth hormone.

“Our children’s health should not be put at risk by their being made to consume rbGH milk at school,” said Ann Cooper, a chef and school food advocate with Lunch Lessons LLC Food Family Farming Foundation.  “Legislation must be put into effect that eliminates artificial hormones and antibiotics from all milk served in school cafeterias all across the country – our chidren’s health depends upon this.”

As for nay-sayers that think there might not be a rbGH-free milk supplier in the district, Ferdon says this hasn’t been an issue as all of the areas have suppliers of rbGH-free milk.

The group has rallied leaders in the environmental, health and food and education movements to write a national coalition letter, which will be presented to Congress on Wednesday, March 11, “National Know Your Milk Day.” That day, supporters can also call their representatives and ask them to include language in the Child Nutrition Act clarifying that schools can purchase rbGH-free milk. In addition, you can also host your own local Day of Action on March 11th to support this effort.