The last few weeks have seen a fascinating public response to Arla Foods’ – a farmer-owned dairy cooperative—announcement that it is trialling the methane-suppressing feed additive Bovaer on 30 UK supplier farms.
The public pushback has been astonishing, with a mass boycott of Arla food products and a sudden raising of awareness of the issues.
For several years, I have been discussing the limitations and risks of a climate response that is so narrowly focused on Carbon (Methane is part of this ‘carbon tunnel vision’ as the gas is measured in carbon equivalents in climate models/calculations). I covered my concerns in this article last year.
In the article, I explore the risks of oversimplifying complex systems, particularly in relation to the functioning of our living planet. I draw attention to the dangers of focusing exclusively on a limited aspect of the intricate dynamics that make up our climate, especially considering that our scientific understanding of these systems is still in its infancy.
We covered this in some detail in this series of articles a few years ago.
When this partial understanding of how the planet works is then baked into policy and backed up with a new economic system, we have a serious problem. As we have seen, corporations and entrepreneurs will scramble to get to market with the next ‘solution’ that could change the world. Unfortunately, they are right. It could change the world, but not for the better if it is based on a faulty premise. We don’t need any more solutioneering; we need to address the multiple root causes of this complex problem.
The pushback against Arla has been largely attributed to a bunch of conspiracy theorists pedalling ‘misinformation’ on X. This assumption is yet more evidence that the industry is not grasping the mood of the Nation and their growing instincts that ‘the science’ (that is essentially conducted by the companies who are bringing the products to market and regulated by organisations with questionable ties to the industry) is perhaps not as robust as we would like!
The facts and details of what people are sharing might be incorrect, but the assumption that companies are spinning the climate narrative to benefit themselves is bang on. People are not stupid; they can spot that ‘big food’, ‘big agriculture’, ‘big pharma’, and now ‘big climate’ are embarking on a gaslighting exercise of the highest order.
Conversely, and equally as worrying, is the general public’s seemingly blind ignorance about how our food and farming systems currently work. Perhaps it is because I have been ranting about the state of our food system for nearly three decades, but it is astonishing to me that most people think that their 95p a pint supermarket milk comes from happy cows grazing peacefully in flower-rich meadows and that this new methane additive is messing with a pure unadulterated natural product!
It doesn’t take much digging to find out that this is not how most dairy farms manage their cattle, and there are some serious concerns about the ethics and environmental impact of high-production dairy farms. For those of us who have been buying and promoting organic and pasture-for-life products for a long time, this is incredibly frustrating to watch as it unfolds.
I hope the boycott of Arla milk will highlight the fabulous dairy farmers who do indeed rear their cattle in high-welfare, organic, and extensive pasture systems. Instead, it seems to be mostly driving supermarket buyers to switch their brands to other cheap supermarket milk that is anything but Arla! Ironically, some fabulous Arla farmers who run pasture-based organic systems will probably suffer from this boycott, too.
Of course, some excellent dairy farmers will be found amongst the huge dairy supply chains of the major supermarket milk suppliers. There will, however, be quite a number of large-housed dairy units where the cattle never graze in a field. These systems generally use highly concentrated feeds grown from ecologically degenerative arable systems. Such systems often have questionable ethical practices, such as calf separation at birth, an overreliance on antibiotics and fertility hormones, and cows being treated like production machines where yield is prioritised over metabolic health and longevity. For these housed systems where the cow is decoupled from the methane-oxidising grassland environment, you can see why there is a case to be made for the use of methane inhibitors!
Methane inhibitors are a mechanistic response to the mechanisation and decoupling of what should be a natural system: cows eating diverse pasture and producing nutrient-dense milk. Caroline Grindrod
But a better response, of course, and one I have committed my life’s work to support, is to buy our meat and milk from pasture-based, organic, and ideally regenerative systems. In these situations, the methane emitted is simply a natural part of the carbon cycle.
Primal Meats does not and will never sell meat from animals that have been fed methane inhibitors. Instead, we dedicate our climate response to promoting and supporting farming methods that achieve net zero by redesigning their systems to ones with minimal inputs and managing their land to sequester carbon, improve water cycles, and naturally oxidise methane.
Pasture for Life has posted its stance on the website, which I encourage you to read
And you can find a list of Pasture for Life certified dairy https://www.pastureforlife.org/where-to-buy/where-to-buy-dairy/
Patrick Holden the CEO of the Sustainable Food Trust has also written an excellent response to the Arla debacle.
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