The Milk System

This is a nice progressive march through the dairy industry in Europe and beyond. It lays out a balance between the traditional, organic farmers and the industrial automated farms both large and small. Sometimes funny and sometimes appalling, it sheds light on all types of farmers through ongoing dialog with some very open and willing farmers. I was impressed with the candor with which the farmers shared how they do what they do. We got an intimate look at their operations--again, several very different ones--and got to know how they feel about their operations and the industry as a whole.

It wends its way back and forth through the dairy product, the feed, the distribution, the politics, and the economics of importing feed and exporting milk products and technology.

Bringing in Africa and China as emerging consumer economies impresses us that there are forces in this industry that are unique and really big (although not all understood this) and how that choice affects the local ecology, our personal health and even something as intangible yet critically important as climate change.

I found it quite interesting and well done.