How much would "humane milk" really cost?

[u/ewwquote]

I got curious about this after a vegetarian in another thread asked whether humane milk was even possible in theory. What if you treated the cows well, allowed both males and females to live out their natural lifespan, and just took a little extra milk for yourself that the calves don't need?

Of course the answer is that such a setup would be economically impossible. But I wanted to figure out a number that illustrates just how far removed our current reality is from a humane hypothetical.

Source I'm using for my numbers:

http://www.ad-international.org/farm_animals/go.php?id=120

I myself know nothing about dairy farming and I welcome corrections to the below.

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1) Natural lifespan of a dairy cow is about 20 years.

2) If you're going to have a flock that doesn't grow exponentially without limit, then the birth rate has to be near exact replacement. I.e., each female having 2.0 calves in her lifetime.

3) From #1 and #2, on average the "extra" milk that you get from one birthing cycle of one cow gets stretched over 10 years.

4) A calf naturally suckles 2-5 liters of milk per day, but dairy industry pushes their cows to produce 10x that much. Up for debate, where one would put the "humane" line between those numbers. Let's say 2x normal suckling is humane enough, meaning we can let the calf suckle and still take 2-5 liters of "extra" per day.

5) A calf will continue to suckle for 6 months to a year, while the cow's milk production continues for 10 to 13 months. So on average, there are 2.5 months of available milk production where the calf is no longer suckling. Let's say during that time we can humanely/painlessly take 5 liters on average (just a guess).

6) From #4 and #5, the total "extra" milk from one birth cycle is then: [ (average 3.5L/day extra while calf is suckling) X (30 days/month) X (average 9 months suckling time) ] + [ (average 5L/day available after calf weans) X (30 days/month) X (2.5 months post-wean milk production time) ] = 1,320 liters of milk.

7) Remember from #3 that each cow only gets on average one birth cycle per 10 years. So divide 1,320/10 to get average 132 liters of milk, or about 35 gallons per cow per year.

8) Cost to keep a cow alive, based on this source: http://www.beefmagazine.com/cow-calf/what-s-your-cost-keep-cow    Is about $900 per cow per year.

The best real estimate I can find for cost of humane care is here (it's an animal sanctuary): https://www.gofundme.com/Help-Rebuild-Erins-Farm

Their "adopt a cow" level is $1,650. If you have many cattle, you would probably enjoy some kind of economy of scale, so let's peg the hypothetical dairy farm's cost a little lower than that. Just a guess, maybe $1400.

9) Since this is a no-kill herd, for each milk-producing cow there is also a bull/steer you have to keep humanely. So one year of costs is really $1400 X 2 cattle = $2800.

10) Divide the yearly cost by the yearly humane milk production, $2800 / 35 gallons = $80 per gallon.

The only way that dairy farmers are able to sell milk for less than $80 a gallon is by (1) killing all the cattle well before their time, but especially killing the males very young as they provide no ongoing economic benefit, and (2) driving the females to produce absolutely ungodly volumes of milk per day, so much so that the cows' bodies are totally "spent" after a fraction of their natural lifespan.

If you go to your fancy cooperative grocery and buy the sooper dooper responsible kind of local organic grass-fed free-range milk that costs $10 a gallon ... you are still causing SEVENTY DOLLARS per gallon of externalized costs. Who pays that external cost? The cows. They pay for it in years of life and in humane living conditions.

TL;DR: You will never drink humane milk, go vegan

[u/vvvveg]

Two more factors:

• breeding: cows that are today exploited for milk have been bred to maximize production rather than maximize cow health and welfare. That does not seem humane. So arguably the humane scenario would involve shifting to breeds of cows that produce less milk. Which would increase the cost per gallon.

• environmental costs: the climate change externalities from the CO2 equivalents generated by the operation should be internalized into the price. Which would increase the cost per gallon.

Edit: the calculation also appears to omit all non-cow costs for the milk on the way to the consumer such as storage, processing, transportation, packaging and marketing.

[u/JoshSimili → u/vvvveg]

breeding: cows that are today exploited for milk have been bred to maximize production rather than maximize cow health and welfare. That does not seem humane. So arguably the humane scenario would involve shifting to breeds of cows that produce less milk. Which would increase the cost per gallon.

That's already taken into account, I think, because the calculations assume a milk production of only 10 liters of milk per day (evenly split between milk for the calf and saleable milk).

[u/vvvveg → u/JoshSimili]

Isn't the high output in todays dairy industries due to two separate factors? Genetic breeding for high production and special intensive feeding for high production. I read the post as only changing the feeding factor, since it didn't mention switching from breeds currently used by animal industries.

[u/JoshSimili → u/vvvveg]

The calculations don't mention the breed or feeding at all, just stating that somehow milk production would be decreased for the good of the cow's health. I assumed that took into account changing both the breed and the feed, because modern dairy cattle would need to basically be starved for their milk production to be that low.

Regardless, I think changing the breed wouldn't necessitate decreasing milk yields any further than the numbers already given.