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The story of humans and milk began over 8,000 years ago.
Back then, the earliest farmers discovered
that they too could drink the milk
that the calves were suckling from the cows
in order to survive hard times.
Since then, milk, the white elixir of life,
has featured in myths and religious writings.
When I was herding cows as a child in the mountains,
I never asked myself why they produce milk.
It was as self-evident as the apples hanging from the trees
or the water flowing down mountain streams.
And all the gestures involved in dealing with cows,
such as the way to call to them,
seemed to have remained unchanged for centuries.
In recent decades, however,
the relationship between humans, animals, and milk, has changed radically.
In Europe alone, it's a market worth 100 billion euros
that produces the almost 200 million tonnes of milk
that are sold by multinational conglomerates annually.
When 1.3 billion Chinese were given a taste for milk
the market simply exploded.
As milk has become a much-desired commodity,
the milk trade is now extremely fierce.
I wanted to hear from industrialists, farmers, and scientists,
about what the effect of this production development has been
on animals, the environment, our politics,
and last but not least, on all of us.
Peder Mouritsen is not a farmer.
He and his son work as entrepreneurs.
Six farms, 750 cows, and 12 employees.
Check up on that. Let's do that.
Can you bring one more?
Frederiksen is on his way.
That's good. Okay.
We're constantly optimizing. I'm thinking about it all the time.
It's nice to be here.
No sleep aid for me. I sleep so well.
But... they say you have stress
if you wake up and you're thinking about work.
Then I've had a lot of stress. I just never really worried about it.
My job is to check, check, check everything.
To make sure that they do what they have to.
I am almost like a shadow, just lurking around.
Our existence relies on
producing milk as cheap as possible
and with the highest quality possible.
There's a lot of pressure on the price.
We need to...
produce more at a higher quality, so we can get the price we want.
That's what it's about.
When we took over the family farm,
we were the 18th generation to do so,
we had 100...
140 cows.
Then we expanded so we had 300.
We doubled up.
That was in 2002.
I could not have imagined that we today would have 750.
Not at all.
It happened because--
It happened because we wanted it.
But... we wanted it because of the money.
As it is...
we will have managed to get through the crisis we are in now,
until the economy starts flowing again.
We will be ready when the price of milk goes up.
Then it's time to make money.
Peder delivers his milk to the dairy concern Arla.
Dairies are the most important interface between producers and consumers.
and are considered the most powerful players
on the milk market.
We need to wear goggles
in this area here.
It comes directly from the farm
and is weighed in.
1.1 million liters, four different types of milk
And then we start here.
We test for penicillin.
We note down which truck delivered the milk.
We also write down if the taste was good enough
then it's graded G1. If it's G3, it's considered waste.
Sterilized, homogenized, pasteurized.
Now the milk is quickly pumped to the filling line.
Arla has grown rapidly in that last decade.
It has incorporated countless competitors.
This puts it in the top five of the largest dairy companies in the world.
When I started as a very young marketer, 27 years old,
in 1987 in Denmark,
there were 37,000 farmers producing a five and a half billion liters of milk.
Today we have 3,500 farmers producing almost the same amount.
So there has been a huge structural development on the farming side.
And that's also needed in order to be able to compete
with farmers throughout the world.
The market has globalized and we today have prices that are
so much linked together.
Whatever happens in Berlin
may come price-wise from a trend in China or vice versa.
As a company, as an FMCG company,
as a food company, as a dairy company,
you have to have the force and the power
to reach further and further away
from your home, finding new consumers,
having the financial power to engage in new technology, in new innovation.
So the growth in itself actually gives us a lot of opportunity
to grasp the opportunities around the world
that we would not have
were we a much smaller company, as we were 10 years ago.
The first one?
In the southern tip of Germany lives the Geiger family.
I'll look where these two are.
Four generations under one roof.
Like most European farmers, theirs is a family business.
They have 250 cows,
but are being forced to economize more and more.
When I came to the farm in 1978,
there were 35 cows.
Today, 35 cows is nothing.
Okay, dig in.
Unfortunately, no fried onions
No onions.
It's a bit of a family thing, it's in the blood.
My husband is a man who is able to work a lot.
And the business mindset stems from him.
From his ancestors.
His grandfather always had the biggest farm
with the most cows.
It seems that is hereditary.
We managed. But we came to a point where we said, "We need to stop."
We didn't want to be pushed anymore.
You're obligated to deliver all your milk to one dairy.
You only find out afterwards how much you'll get paid.
And if the milk price drops, it's tough luck.
You have no power, no influence.
Back in the day, our cattle were put out to pasture.
But when you have so many, that's difficult,
herding so many cows out to the pastures,
some of which are far away.
Taking them out there and back every day is lots of work.
Also the paths are dirty and we'd have to clean them all.
That's ultimately why we stopped pasture feeding.
Back when we had just 100 cows, they were outside.
For the cows, pasture is definitely better,
we don't even need to argue about that.
This is Discovery.
We call him the poop robot.
It pushes the cows' poop down the drain.
A manure sewer is underneath.
It's a clean solution, so the cows always stand on clean ground.
They don't have to stand in the muck.
That's important for the health of their hooves.
The Geiger's don't have one single employee.
But they do have the most modern technology.
According to Martin, they couldn't run the farm as a family business
without the milking robot.
Using a little to achieve a lot,
that's my goal.
But politics is making it harder and harder.
It's no longer possible.
Maybe it is wishful thinking, I don't know...
wanting to achieve more with less.
Today, you need to go higher and higher, always deliver more.
There are consultants who tell you which fodder to feed the cows
so you can always achieve maximum yield,
more growth...
We're reaching our limits as a family operation.
We don't earn as much anymore.
We're only working for the big companies, the feed and food industry.
And we fall by the wayside.
Right now, the base price we get is 27 cents.
In order to cover all cost of our milk production,
we'd need at least 40 cents or higher.
And that makes me angry.
Yeah. That makes me question whether the system is working right.
Dairies have traditionally been organized as cooperatives
but little remains of their regional social intentions.
Another global player in the milk sector is FrieslandCampina,
which is based in Holland.
It's a bit like Darwin, huh?
If you don't keep renewing yourself, you basically die.
So we need to keep renewing. We need growth.
We need to grow in order to...
to keep innovating to be able to keep investing.
And I think that's also important for the health of our company.
As soon as we stop growing, I think we have a big problem.
We always say that we are from grass to glass.
So we have the cows,
we have the production, and we have the sales and the products.
The best way to compare our company is almost with a refinery.
There's a huge, huge array of products that we make with our milk.
These are all the products that are coming out of one stream of milk that goes in
and all these products magically come out.
One of our, uh...
fastest-growing categories, infant formula.
We have the Friso brand that we sell all over the world
but predominantly southeast Asia and China.
Another highlight is a product that we recently launched in Hong Kong.
It's Optimel adult nutrition.
This is a product for seniors.
We have three types: for 40+, 50+ and 60+.
And basically, when you're getting older you're losing your muscles,
you're losing your mobility.
And we have a specific formulation for senior people.
And this is a big trend that we also see across the world.
Now for people who have less money,
we also have a product that we sell in West Africa
that basically
lowers the price point, gives them one consumption.
They can buy four in a row but they can also...
buy one piece apart.
And by doing that
the trade is also happy because they can serve more customers.
Is there really no alternative to always bigger and more global?
In South Tyrol, I meet Alexander Agethle
on his small, organic dairy farm.
It wasn't far from here that I herded cows as a child.
Emma, hup!
Hup! Hey.
Go, go.
Hup!
Hey. Go, go.
Recently a woman said to me,
"You know, Alexander, the cows walk as quickly as their farmer."
Then I said, "Well, I guess I'm a leisurely guy."
How you treat the animals shows.
They like walking.
They go slowly because they were on the pasture all summer.
And because of that they aren't as quick.
It is quite interesting to note
that the average age of the cattle has risen tremendously.
They don't have to produce as much milk and hence aren't pushed to their limit.
So they have the resources to become older.
If I had a chair I could stay here all day.
For me, watching a cow graze...
it's just soothing.
The job of a farmer is so varied. That's what drew me to it.
It is much more than just a job, it's a way of life.
At least that's how I interpret it.
It was clear to me that I wanted to pursue organic farming.
To me, organic farming is the most economic way of farming.
So it was also clearly an economic decision.
It quickly became clear
it wouldn't remain a big factory farm.
We decided that we wanted to process our milk ourselves.
- Hello! Good morning! - Hi!
To me it became clear right away
that we needed to aim for quality.
That's why we make cheese from our raw milk,
develop our own recipes,
so we can achieve a high quality.
We are lucky to have so many skills within our family,
there's communication, organization, and production skills.
We are really lucky.
Of course, farmer-to-consumer marketing
has its limitations as not everyone can come here.
But nowadays there are many different distribution options.
But I do have to say
I am not interested in selling my cheese
beyond a range of 200 kilometers.
It makes no sense ecologically.
The most central and yet weakest link
in the intensive milk production chain are the cows.
They are permanently being optimized through breeding.
The high-producing cows of the Friesian breed
don't have much in common anymore
with the animals I drove out onto the meadows.
These animals are task optimized,
meaning they were bred specifically for milk production.
It's rare to have a day without insemination.
Maybe one day without, but most days we inseminate.
Pregnancy is the most important part of keeping cattle or cows.
A cow can't be empty too long or otherwise she'll get fat.
That would result in her not be giving milk.
A cow should have one calf per year.
If she can't get pregnant anymore, unfortunately, she'll have to go.
That's the way it is.
Somehow I failed to realize that the milk we drink
is that of permanently pregnant cows.
Because without a calf, there's no milk.
And without milk, there's no right to exist.
Cows could easily live to the age of 20,
but the average lifespan of a high-producing animal
doesn't even top five.
And it's only the females that are allowed to survive in any case.
Come here, hey.
Come with me, come.
Come on, go.
A cattle trader will come and pick them up.
He'll sort them by weight and breed.
And then he'll sell them to fattening farms.
I only sell bulls. Female offspring remain on our farm.
I need them to add as stock replacement.
Bulls are more of a burden. They require lots of work.
They're worth around €70 per calf.
We used to get lower prices, €50.
It's not profitable. But we have them and have to do it.
We can't just kill them.
Our animals are just numbers.
They calve after two years.
But we decided four ago
what sperm to use and how to cross breed them.
It was actually four years that we decided...
at least four...
how that one is supposed to look today.
And it is a bit funny to see
if it turns out as it should.
Will we get what we expected?
A lot of new knowledge comes along in four years,
so you might already know it will turn out bad.
But then you'll see how bad exactly. That's also...
...fun to see.
Our idea of a crossbreed,
when we started four or five years ago,
was to get a cow we could milk...
for more years.
Because it costs money to raise a new cow.
In those two years the calf just...
takes up space while it needs to grow.
That's just expenses, expenses, expenses.
If we could get a cow that could milk for five years rather than three,
then we would not have to get another one.
We would be some surplus calves which we can sell,
though they're not worth much. It is just a waste product to us.
If the price for them is so low that we can't even cover our expenses
to keep them alive for two weeks,
then we put them down. We have to.
This is not a charity. This is a business.
The breeders are not yet capable
of completely excluding the births of males.
But they will be.
I meet the turbo-cow breeder elite in Cremona, North Italy,
for a genetic performance show.
In recent years, genetics helped us a lot
because it selected very productive animals,
but also ones able to handle more and more stress.
It's like an athlete.
Athletes are never fat.
They are lean but in shape.
A fat animal
is not productive and suffers.
The animal should be in shape.
It has to be fed with the highest quality product,
whether it is hay or feed,
so that it can become pregnant as soon as possible.
One calf a year, if possible.
You can buy the embryo,
a newborn calf,
a pregnant heifer,
or a dairy cow.
How does it work with the embryos?
With the embryo, there's a catalog
which, obviously, shows embryos that are offered on the market.
These cows are way more sensitive.
Well, it's like having a Formula One and having it run on a country road.
There's the milk demonstration.
You can see if the animal
produces a lot or little milk.
The animal will tell you.
- You can tell by looking? - Huh?
-You can tell from the outside? -Yes, yes.
Yes, yes, yes.
High-producing cows are living power stations.
They have to pump over 20,000 liters of blood through their udders every day,
an energy-sapping task.
But there are other problems relating to high-performance husbandry.
In this kind of business with 700 cows,
we produce a lot of manure.
We have this rule of thumb...
for one liter of milk you get three liters of manure.
We produce 20,000 to 24,000 liters of milk.
You can do the math.
That's around 70,000 liters of manure a day.
We use this tank as a buffer.
It's an eternal problem. It's always full.
I don't want to look at shit anymore.
Professor Johannes Isselstein
is systematically examining the manure problem,
what goes into a cow and what comes out.
And how much is modern dairy farming straining the ecological cycle.
You can completely feed cattle with grass.
Cows are amazing animals in so far as...
they turn a raw material, grass,
that is an inferior resource to human nutrition,
into something extremely superior, milk protein.
The intensification of milk production led to cows being expected
to deliver a higher yield
and this higher yield couldn't be upheld with natural roughage.
Under our conditions in milk production
we have around one third of feed energy stemming from grass
and two thirds of what the cows eat and what is used for milk production
is farm harvested feed.
Most farmers have to buy this feed
and the majority of it is soy.
The majority of soy that farmers buy comes from South America.
A massive expanse of rainforest has been cleared there
for European fodder production.
They are known as "shadow fodder fields",
a flattering name for an ecological disaster.
And we will never rid the world of famine
if you feed corn and soy to animals rather than nourish humans with it.
And is if that wasn't scary enough,
cows can only use a third of the energy that is in soy or grain.
Globally speaking, we are squandering resources on a massive scale
by feeding cows with grain to promote higher yields.
Grain and soy are mixed with silage and fermented
to make durable green fodder.
In intensive enclosed farming, this paste is fed to the cows.
There is drought in Ukraine.
It rains in the USA.
All of that has an effect on what I buy and what I sell.
I also have to think...
it's so cheap now. Prices can only go up.
So I cover my bases while it's cheap and hope the selling price will rise.
That is how it works.
-Who is this? -Hello, Peter.
-Welcome. -Thanks.
-What's up? -What's up?
-How's it going with the corn harvest? -Well...
We have harvested 38 hectares,
-so we are not quite ready yet. -No?
-It will take a while. -It's the early variety.
-It's not good with too much sun. -Well, that's all right then.
The question is if it'll be enough for all 2017--
-Exactly. -Maybe.
-Let's try to-- -Maybe we should lock the prices now.
That's the question.
We need to evaluate what the market will do.
-Can you deliver that price on it? -Yes, we can.
-It only costs an arm and a leg. -84 kroner more than the regular.
The animal is the transformer of nutrients.
All of it ends up in liquid manure.
Farmers here purchase protein from overseas
and protein consists mainly of nitrogen.
We import high amounts of nitrogen
which then don't get transferred back to the originating countries
but instead end up on our own fields.
This means we have a considerable import of nitrogen.
Our fields have to cope with these purchased amounts of nitrogen.
High amounts of nitrogen can lead to risks of emissions.
Nitrate can be washed out into the soil.
Ammonia vents when organic fertilizers are applied.
Or nitrate in the soil turns into nitrous oxide
which then is released into the atmosphere and is extremely damaging to the climate.
Some countries, Holland for example,
solve these issues by selling liquid manure internationally.
That way their own soil isn't overburdened.
Nitrates in the groundwater are so dangerous
because they are converted into nitrites in our body.
Nitrites, in turn, prevent the transportation of oxygen
and are suspected carcinogens.
Tests show excessive quantities of nitrates in a third of German wells.
In Holland, the soil in now so burdened that the EU is threatening
to prohibit all milk production.
The system exposes farmers to pressure, ruins our environment,
and encourages cattle breeding ad absurdum,
and yet more milk is being produced every year.
The departure from conventional milk production on Alexander's farm
hasn't been entirely free of friction.
I gave him the farm...
understanding that he would continue the work
in a way that suits him or the way he wished to do it.
So I did back off...
but on occasion I got frustrated watching.
I was a successful breeder
and the cattle performance was good.
Of course, I had problems as well,
but I accepted the problems so I would still have the high yields.
My fellow farmers
respected and accepted me as one of their own.
Our small cheesemaking business has made a name for itself.
We could sell much more than we produce.
And using simple techniques to increase production
in order to sell more and make more profit,
that's a speculative thought.
I think we simply have two completely different views...
of profitability.
One entails high amounts of milk, high revenue,
high costs.
And mine is low amounts of milk, low revenue, low costs.
Research has shown
that the most intensive and the most extensive models
are the most successful economically.
So... we're both right.
But for me, the ecological impact is important
and we don't include environmental costs into calculations,
so I'm a bit more right.
First and foremost, it needs to be authentic,
meaning the cow eats what it can find.
They give half of the amount of milk
that we used to produce.
But it's good milk.
Alexander has no problems with his manure.
He processes his cow dung into high quality compost.
This used to be manure but now it smells like soil from the woods.
I don't fertilize the plants...
I fertilize the land.
A handful of this topsoil...
in this handful
we have more microbes than humans on this planet.
And when I use this fertilizer, I feed those microbes.
That's the paradigm shift.
We need to get off the tractor,
touch our soil and understand it.
This is essentially the secret of successful ecological agriculture,
at least in my opinion.
The milk branch meets annually
at the World Dairy Summit.
Everyone plays their part
to persuade consumers with innovative strategies
about how healthy and beneficial milk products are.
The biggest challenge of the future is to produce sufficient...
milk and dairy products to feed the global population.
When you look at how much dairy we are supposed to consume,
in Europe and many countries, like the Netherlands,
it's advised to have three servings of dairy a day.
In some other parts of the world they, um...
advise two servings a day.
Suppose you go for two servings,
and then when you look at how many people there will be in the world in 2050,
if everybody would have two servings of dairy,
we would need to double the production we have today.
We are actually not selling.
We are talking here about the "First 1000 Days" concept,
which is a scientific concept that we embraced as a company.
And together with a partner,
so, like medical institutions, but also NGOs, governmental authorities,
we educate society about the importance of nutrition.
The consumer will be open to the communication
that is provided by our products.
So, therefore, we as a business can say, "Okay!"
And now we offer a range of products,
because we have a large portfolio,
and now, you, knowing how important this is,
you can consciously choose.
What are you looking for?
Are you looking for something that will help your child digest?
Are you looking for infant formula?
Are you looking for follow-on formula?
So it's Yakult. It's a bottle full of live bacteria
and they reach the intestines alive.
Okay. And what that does happen in my body if I drink it?
Yeah, that's the problem.
There's a legal European law that prohibits me to tell you about it.
It's almost a moral imperative to feed the world.
I mean, we should.
We have a growing world population.
We should be able to go to feed these people.
Some people are even saying food is a human right.
The cow's milk is the sourcing that we really rely on.
But we modified it,
which means that some ingredients we have to remove
and some ingredients we have to add
to mimic, in the best possible way, breast milk.
So, when the cattle is being born,
the milk that the cow is providing is for the cattle to grow.
It's also for the cattle to grow horns and hooves.
And for us humans, that's, let's say...
not necessary.
So, probably maybe we could, you know, milk chimpanzees.
But, again, in terms of accessibility, well, that wouldn't be very smart.
We are not allowed to speak to consumers
on the health effects of our products, unfortunately.
So... they don't know.
The health-promoting effect of milk products
is the industry's main selling point.
Thirty grams of milk fat, 35 grams of protein,
47 grams of lactose, seven grams mineral salts,
and all essential vitamins can be found in one liter of milk.
From the first day of our lives,
milk benefits our health.
In Europe, it's only since the 50s and 60s
that we have increased our milk consumption.
We were taught from an early age
that it's an elixir of life.
But is milk anywhere near as healthy as we are told it is?
♪ It's marvelous what it can do!♪
♪ And with its protein it provides Strength for our muscles♪
In Northern European/ North American culture,
milk has been very important.
In part, it's enabled us to live in a cold climate
where we don't have fruits and vegetables
and other foods available all year round,
like in a more temperate or tropical climate.
It did allow us to survive
until we're 45 or 50 years of age and we could reproduce.
But today we would like to live longer and be healthier
for many decades longer.
and that northern climate way of consuming food,
that diet of northern climates,
has turned out not to be optimally healthy.
I don't want milk. Milk's for babies.
Yeah, babies.
Oh, yeah? Well, I happen to know that milk helps build strong bones.
So drink up.
Well, Mr. Miller told me he never drinks milk.
-And look at him. -Yeah.
Hi, kids!
Oh.
Oh, that's not good.
Prevention of bone fractures has been
the main rationale, the main justification
for consuming high amounts of milk.
So it's been perhaps an enigma, a paradox
that the countries that consume the most milk
actually have the highest fracture rates.
We've known that for quite a while.
And now we're starting to understand, I think, at least some of the reason
why countries that consume a lot of milk have the highest fracture rates.
We've been conducting several large, long-term studies.
We have enrolled almost 300,000 men and women and adolescents
and followed them now for almost 40 years,
keeping track of what they consume as foods, the amount of milk they consume,
and also physical activity, smoking,
pretty much anything else we could think of
that might affect their health.
♪ Milk gives the body what it needs♪
♪ So it stays fit, as you know♪
♪ Because only milk can do that♪
♪From milk protein to calcium♪
♪ Minerals to vitamins♪
Milk is something that promotes growth.
That's the natural function of milk. It's to make young mammals grow fast,
make our cells multiply when we need to at a young age.
But for the rest of our life, especially as adults,
we don't necessarily want ourselves to be multiplying fast.
That's one of the factors that we understand helps promote cancer growth
and that has raised concerns that high consumption of milk
may promote risk of cancer.
The evidence is strongest for prostate cancer,
but it's possible that high milk consumption
might increase the risk of other cancers as well.
I don't think we have to tell people that they should stop drinking milk
or not having any dairy.
I think having a range of acceptable dairy consumption
would be better.
And I think that can include zero dairy consumption
and probably maximum about two servings a day of dairy,
but that's really not essential.
But if someone wants to have that amount, I think it can be incorporated,
especially if that part of that is in the form of yogurt.
Walter Willett's studies are among the most frequently cited
in the specialist world.
And although the experts discuss them heatedly,
one thing remains unchallenged.
Milk is not, per se, as healthy as the industry claims.
The industry, on a global scale, is very alert to, uh...
some of these, you know, um...
pieces of science that comes out
and you have to take it very seriously.
I think that we have been, for some time now,
in a trend where the overriding trend is
that dairy is actually a very healthy and nutritious raw material
and that you can do lots of wonderful things with dairy.
I think that's the overriding impression.
I also think, on the other side,
we as an industry need to understand that we have to present our products
in a way that they are also indeed natural and healthy.
So we are working with less fat in our products
while maintaining a nice quality that is worthwhile eating and drinking.
That's a difficult balance to strike.
So I think that if we're doing it in a clever way as an industry,
the raw material of milk has a bright future.
Where is the core set for milk production development?
On my travels it becomes apparent that Brussels is the central setting
for the European dairy industry.
The handsome sum of 45 billion euros,
the largest item on the European Union's budget,
is spent there every year on agriculture.
Martin Häusling is a parliamentarian and also an organic dairy farmer.
One shouldn't imagine
that the EU parliament's decision-making process
is driven by farmers in Baden-Württemberg
or in Slovenia.
It's about the interests of an industry.
Milk is a cheap raw material being mixed into lots of things.
It's being split up into its components and is used in many industries,
from candy to supplements.
They want cheap materials.
And they want to make sure
that we always operate close to a surplus.
No one in the food sector
wants to have small amounts or amounts that merely satisfy the European market.
They always want to be far over the limit.
We need to have a constant surplus to be able strong-arm the producers
They can threaten them that if they don't sell to them for a certain price,
someone else in the EU will.
So we're not just looking at the interests of 13 million farmers
who receive EU subsidies.
It's about the top players, including the dairy factories.
And they mainly benefit from us
exporting massive amounts of milk for low prices globally.
The COPA farmers organization
is one of the most powerful lobby groups in Brussels.
For decades, the organization has been successfully promoting its interests here.
Farming is the best business of them all.
It's the best...
I can't say "way of life"
because it's no longer, if it ever was, a way of life.
It's a way of making a living.
And especially for those young farmers and their families that enter the market,
it has to be a competitive form of...
let's say, livelihood.
And if that is not maintained, there's no future for agriculture.
How closely COPA and the industry are actually intertwined
is something that Nina Holland from Corporate Europe Observatory
can elucidate.
There are roughly between 20,000 and 30,000 lobbyists
based here in Brussels and most of them work for the industry.
We can assume that the food lobby is pretty big.
Okay. So here we are at the office of FoodDrinkEurope
So, FoodDrinkEurope is a big lobby group
comprising all big food corporations, including Nestlé, Danone, etc.
They are very much obviously in favor of deregulation in general.
They organized an event together with COPA-COGECA, the farmer's lobby,
to say how much benefits Europe would have
and the food industry and the farmers from TTIP.
And, of course, it was a bit odd that the farmers would
sit together with the food industry.
It clearly fits into the logic and philosophy of COPA-COGECA to actually
fight for the so-called 10% of farmers
who will become the most modernized, most industrialized,
who can operate and can be competitive on the world market
and not actually defend the interests of all farmers.
The whole agri-food chain turnover, and especially if you measure that
from the industry to retail level,
is somewhere close to 1.4 to 1.5 trillion euro.
So it's a staggering number.
And it is the biggest economic sector for the moment.
It's bigger than the automobile industry.
It's bigger than the chemical industry.
We produce more per hectare.
We produce more per animal.
This is particularly the strength of the European Union, agriculture.
It is really important for us that we maintain this productivity trend.
But why must a trend be maintained
when the European market has long-since been saturated?
You have to think back to the year 2000.
Not only the agriculture market was deregulated
but also financial markets were.
The basic belief was...
anything not regulated by the state will be regulated by the free market
and it'll be better.
And so the European agricultural policy, which in fact was highly regulated,
was opened to the world market.
The farmers received some direct payments
but were told, "Go ahead and produce what you want,
the market will take it.
And the big growing markets like
China, Africa, Middle East, maybe South America,
are the markets that we needed to serve."
The driving thought was us providing food for the world.
So it's no longer about securing European food supply
as was the declared aim of the European agricultural policy.
European farmers are now supposed to produce for world export
and at the same time facilitate growth for the agricultural conglomerates.
We're in a situation today
where it's evident that the growth in dairy consumption per capita
is growing outside of Europe
The European consumers are getting more advanced and more demanding
and want a lot of innovation but the consumption as such is not growing.
But outside of Europe is for the industry, I think for the European dairy industry,
extremely important and that's the nut that we need to crack.
All of us, one way or the other.
And we are trying to do different strategies, the companies in between.
But how does one make a population group happy
with something they don't know at all?
This business coup can be best admired taking the example of China.
So, basically, what we tell them is
that if you drink milk,
you get proteins and nutrition that makes you strong and tall.
So the Asian population is in need for strength,
resilience, strong families.
They also like to be tall because they believe that
when you're more tall you're more successful in life
and you're more healthy.
And what you see is that small babies that get infant nutrition
will stay with a milk diet.
And when kids are drinking milk
also the families are starting to drink milk.
So people, slowly but steady, get more milk into their diets.
In China's supermarkets
I don't just find chic UHT milk six-packs
but also endless shelves of baby food unlike anything I've ever seen in Europe.
Is it true that people in China drink milk because they want to grow higher?
Yes, for their kids.
In my knowledge, at least, calcium is good for your bones
and then you drink as a small kid and hopefully you'll grow taller.
Given the rise is prosperity, milk has become overnight
a fashionable Western consumer item for the Chinese.
China drinks milk.
This announcement was essentially the green light
for the liberalization of the European milk market
and the race for the top in the Chinese market.
But in China, huge native production structures
have been created in almost no time.
Total investment was 10 billion RMB.
Daily capacity is 2,000 tons fresh milk.
So we think this is the biggest liquid milk workshop in the world.
Now you can see this is Arla,
it's our third largest shareholder.
We cooperate with Arla Foods mainly in farm management.
And this one is for Danone. Danone is our second largest shareholder.
We established a cooperation company with Danone to produce yogurt.
Now here you can see our very beautiful European-style street.
Because we want our visitors stay here very relaxed.
And they can take some pictures,
they can know the history and origin of milk.
In Europe, farmers need the support of their dairies.
But these are investing in China
and thereby increasing pressure on European farmers.
Around this plant we have many big farms.
Like, on one farm, there are more than 10,000 cows.
In China, there was not a established dairy system.
We learned from the experiences of other countries
how they manage and operate a large dairy farm.
What is especially problematic here is the large number of cows we have.
I myself was honored to have participated
in the building of the largest dairy farm in China
EVERYTHING ELSE IS POINTLESS IF THERE IS A QUALITY ISSUE WITH RAW MILK
We didn't believe it when they said
the Chinese would drink everything up.
That we wouldn't be able to produce enough in the future.
In the weekly papers we kept reading
we should prepare for the future. That's what every paper said.
Our farmer's association always said, "We are competitive!"
That German farmers remain competitive. We're not afraid of competition.
"China will drink us dry!" That's what the associations said
And all dairy factories said they can market everything for a good price.
But it didn't happen that way.
STOP FARMS FROM DYING REDUCE AMOUNTS, DON'T RUIN FARMERS
Since 2008, many milk farmers
have been regularly protesting against dumping prices
in the hope of influencing decisions taken in Brussels.
Official farmer associations are seldom to be seen at the demonstrations.
We attended demonstrations where I learned a lot.
I talked to other farmers and everyone had the same issues.
FREEDOM, EQUALITY, FARMING
We all have the same thoughts.
That's when I realized that we're being screwed over.
We went on strike and tried to change things
so we'd head in the right direction again.
But our farmer's association worked against us with all means.
We've been producing a surplus of milk for decades.
This could've been regulated.
But they didn't want to.
Everything had to be cheap at all times. The surplus is what breaks us.
After the strike we knew that this was all planned.
The way things are, it's all intentional.
That the milk price is not intended to go up.
Milk as a raw material is supposed to be cheap for the dairy factories.
And for retail.
In order to store milk longer and transport it globally,
the industry transforms it into powdered milk
in an energy intensive drying process.
The farmers have actually produced so much more milk because it was attractive,
if you go back a year ago, that the market over-flooded.
Then again the whole industry,
whether you were a big company and a branded player,
or a private label player, or a small player.
You have to find a home for your milk and your products
and that drives competition and it drives price competition.
But what is to be done with all these goods?
New markets are needed,
so the EU reaches new made-to-measure free trade agreements
with parts of Africa.
These also guarantee long-term, low import duties
for European milk products.
The powdered milk that mainly comes from Europe
is offloaded here in the port of Dakar
to then be distributed all around the country here in Senegal.
Bocar Diaw runs a small dairy
and is president of the Senegalese milk association.
- Give it. - It's heavy.
Milk is in high demand.
After receiving the milk, we pay by check.
We do not have a limit on what we stock.
We often have up to a thousand bags.
Here, we have this. It is industrial milk.
It is curdled milk made from powdered milk.
We also have...
"Yahourt Jaboot" which is from a dairy company,
which specialize in producing yogurt from powdered milk.
They are all imported products.
These packs cost 75 or 100 francs.
They are affordable to everyone
and easy to use because it is powdered milk.
You understand? And it is from the European Union.
These are all products from the European Union.
So, the European Union policy
supports their agriculture financially,
which enables a dumping...
in our local economy.
INTENSE MOMENTS OF HAPPINESS!
DRINK YOUR MILK, BREATHE WELL, BE STRONG.
EAT HEALTHY
The small dairy Bocar runs is on the edge of Dakaar.
He works exclusively with native cow's milk.
The process is simple, really.
We receive cow's milk,
we specialize in cow milk.
We work with farms that collect and bring us milk.
We make the transformation...
into yogurt, sour milk, and then we sell in our shops.
The milk we produce here in Senegal from our cows
is much more expensive for the producer
because production costs are high.
It's a lot easier today to process powdered milk.
We'd earn more money with powdered milk.
But we opted to work with cow's milk because it is much more sustainable.
Agriculture here does not get any support,
there is also no subsidies for livestock.
That is why the production cost are high.
There are no grants for producing, transforming,
and marketing the products.
We are pretty much on our own.
Now, in the current situation, the European milk industry
is completely dependent on direct payments.
No dairy farmer can survive if they don't receive
their annual payments from the EU on Dec 31.
It's almost their entire income.
The subsidies from EU are important.
-We depend on them. -We can't live without them.
If you look at the bottom line, year after year,
then it has to be there.
Because there's nothing else there.
You can't make money by producing milk
without the subsidies from EU. It's impossible.
Ask the bank what they would say if we didn't get it.
Yes. But you could also ask what it would take
to not rely on the subsidies from EU.
We would simply need 50 øre more for our milk.
-And it's-- -That would replace...
...the subsidies from the EU.
The consumer would just have to pay 50 øre more.
It sounds like nothing, but we are talking about billions.
The consumer would save too. They wouldn't pay as much tax to the EU.
-Yes. -They are paying anyway.
-They do. -It's going around in a circle.
It's going around but through some clever white collar people.
-But do we want it... -No.
If the EU decided tomorrow
to no longer pay those 45 billion euros in direct payments
this way of agriculture and this export strategy couldn't function any longer.
So the taxpayer fuels this export strategy and the strategy of cheapness
and the taxpayer gets told that they get cheap products in return.
But they aren't for the European market, they're ruining small African farmers.
Today the dairy farmers really...
they can barely make it.
Because they don't know where to sell their milk.
It's a rural area,
everyone has cattle.
So, the milk market is not here.
For Bocaw, dairy farming always has a social component
and can not simply be left to the free market.
Policy is required.
Assalamualaikum.
- How are you? - Good, you?
-How things going here? -Things are fine.
-The milk collection? -Not too bad!
How many liters did you collect?
About 140, 150.
140, 150? How much you buy it for?
300.
We could use some better equipment, at least, the stuff here is--
-It doesn't allow us to... -Semi-industrial?
Yes, at least semi-industrial.
Of course there is competition.
Especially the powdered milk.
It is everywhere.
They should increase the taxes on imported goods
to help finance the local producers.
That's right.
True.
If you are succeed at what you are doing
that would mean you are combating poor nutrition
because kids will have quality milk.
You fought poverty because farmers
will have good job with an income.
This is a big fight.
-We are dealing with a rural exodus here. -That is true.
-How many people are employed here? -Seven.
-Seven already! -Only with 150 liters.
This means that if you got the support
to produce 1,000 liters, you will hire 50 people.
That's for sure.
But regarding the rural exodus.
The worst thing is that kids of farmers are on the boats to go overseas.
They’re dying in Libya and on the high seas.
This is very important.
The children who die there are the sons of cattle-breeders.
In 2008, the World Bank and the UNO
had information on global agriculture collated.
The scientists found that the decisive factor of the war on hunger
is not increased productivity
but the availability of food and the means of its local production.
The best guarantees for comprehensive global food security
are small farming structures.
A large part of the agricultural industry
rejects these findings.
We've led agriculture in a direction
that is clearly a dead end.
It happened because we made agriculture a topic exclusively for economists.
And on the other hand, for us it is a job and a way of life.
I believe it's time to make agriculture a topic
for ecologists, philosophers, and economists.
But it can't just be a matter of numbers.
We need to create much smaller production units,
create more diversified production units,
create production units with less technology.
This may sound completely alien
but as of right now, we farmers are in the process of rationalizing ourselves.
On the other hand, agriculture has an emotional aspect to it.
My farming is a soulful endeavor.
The animals are very important to me.
And I can only achieve this ideal
by remaining small.
I fancy the idea that I will manage
to make my cheese recognizable by its terroir
simply by cultivating my soil the way I do.
It's my vision that someday
you will be able to recognize a region from a cheese.
That I'll be able to tell from the smell and taste of a cheese
that it's from this area.
And for that purpose, importing feed from all over the world
to produce lots of milk is pointless.
Instead, it will be crucial that the cow eats what it can find here.
But is Alexander's model
of strictly organic dairy farming
only feasible on a small scale?
Together with two other farmers,
Kjartan Poulsen runs a large organic dairy farm in Denmark.
When you enter the cow house
it doesn't look very different to a conventional farm.
But the differences are fundamental.
We are very close to 100% self-sufficient
in what we feed the animals and...
almost all our cattle is outside all summer
1,600 heads, they are all on grass in the summertime.
We do not want to be stressed.
Neither do we want to make stress to the animals.
We just feed them what we can grow every year
and then take the milk that they produce.
And in this way everyone is, I believe, more happy.
If they are kept on pastures and eat only grass,
cows are not climate criminals.
On an environmental balance sheet then
organic milk is definitely superior to ordinary milk.
Even if it is produced in the same industrial fashion
as at Kjartan Poulsen's.
So the pertinent question becomes, "Why don't more farmers go organic?"
Especially since prices organic farmers receive
are consistently good.
"Too expensive and too labor intensive,"
is what farmers tell me.
Which is why most of them prefer to stick with the conventional model and hope,
year in, year out, for a rise in prices.
We are about 100% in debt today, so we should try to get that down a bit.
Every month we deliver...
an efficiency plan to the bank.
Number of cows that died, milk produced per cow, and all those things.
We send that to them as information.
But... we're not tied at the hands and feet.
I can go buy whenever I want.
But they are following us closely.
We have to be...
better farmers than our neighbors.
Yes.
-We are... at war with everyone. -That's--
-You need to know that... -Yes.
...for when you take over.
There's no--
-There's no goodwill. It's not-- -No. Nobody will cry for you.
You have to...
be an asshole once in a while.
What's been happening in the past years
is a cannibalization of the sector
They eat each other up. Without any consideration.
Whenever land is for lease...
even at the funeral of a farmer, the widow is approached
about whether she wants to lease her husband's land.
That's not a one time thing, every village tells those stories.
People are becoming inconsiderate.
Obviously not always because they want more
but because they're under such pressure.
It's such a bubble. They have their backs against the wall.
They have been driven so far out and can't even go back.
It's locked.
We were discussing milk policy
then Bové got up and said, "I ask you to rise and commemorate
the 600 French farmers who committed suicide last year."
First, a murmur went through the rows
but then everyone, including the Commissioner, stood up.
The number is apparently true.
As I said...
farmers now have a disproportionately high suicide rate.
I'm a strong believer that long term,
and I know that can be difficult if you're a farmer to accept that today,
but long term there is a nice future for dairy products.
It's a very healthy product, it's nutritious.
It's the right nutrition for lots of people in the world
and there are many consumers out there
who are just now learning to eat and drink a dairy products
the way we're used to doing it in Europe or the Old World, so to speak.
So there is, on the demand side, a great opportunity actually.
If we understand as companies to grasp that opportunity
and that's an ongoing process and we will never be finished doing that.
The cattle's liquid manure
flows through the system and produces energy.
Or rather gas and thus electricity.
With pure liquid manure we now make more money than with our milk.
-With poop. -With poop, so to speak.
That's a joke if you think about it.
I just got a message...
a text here on on my phone.
The price of milk will rise 15.1 øre on October 1st.
Yes.
We are ready.
That's straight to the bottom line.
That's damn good.
Almost makes me cry.