It’s time to ‘Make America Healthy Again’

How did we get to the point where we need a “Make America Healthy Again” campaign? Here’s one career dairyman’s perspective.

In the late 1980s, skim milk powder began to be mass-marketed on the global stage. Known on U.S. Department of Agriculture market reports as nonfat dry milk, this powder is the dehydrated waste product of butter, cheese and cream production. As a waste product, dairy farmers are not paid when NFDM is sold.

Historically, China has been the world’s largest user of NFDM, feeding it to hogs. Here in the United States, the same product was used for field applications and livestock feed.

But fast-forward 20 years and suddenly this byproduct was being promoted as a nutritional staple for American families.

That’s when Dairy Management Inc., the federally mandated dairy checkoff program funded by dairy farmers, began pushing low-fat and no-fat milk as healthier alternatives to whole milk.

In reality, they were marketing a liquid form of NFDM. This so-called “nutritionally superior” milk, because it lacked animal fat, transformed from a waste product into a cash cow for processors.

At the same time, the United States began seeing a troubling rise in Alzheimer’s disease and mental health issues among children. The human brain is fueled by animal fat.

Coincidence? I don’t think so.

By 2010, the secretary of agriculture at the time removed whole and 2% milk from school lunches. After leaving the USDA, he took a job at the U.S. Dairy Export Council. You can draw your own conclusions.

Meanwhile, back on the farm, butterfat has been the primary driver of milk prices for decades. But how much of the dairy checkoff budget goes toward promoting butter, an actual full-fat dairy product? Less than one-tenth of 1%.

When I asked DMI representatives about research on full-fat dairy, they said studies had been done, but would not share any results.

So, who benefits from the checkoff funds every hardworking dairy farmer is forced to pay? The processors, not the farmers — certainly not the consumers.

Why do we need a “Make America Healthy Again” campaign? What’s fueling it? We have an epidemic of brain disorders caused by poor nutrition, and products that were once considered waste are now consumed daily by mainstream America — all while farmers foot the bill through hijacked checkoff dollars.

How did we get here? It started when milk-buying cooperatives began block voting. That means individual farmers had no say in how checkoff funds were used.

Only cooperative board members voted, and each board cast a single, unified vote. Sound democratic? It’s not. But it makes it easier for DMI to get what they want.

It’s time for accountability, and it’s time for the checkoffs to face the music for decades of misspent efforts and dollars. It’s time for one producer, one vote.

The Opportunities for Fairness in Farming Act, S.1848/H.R.3516, must be passed to bring transparency and fairness to how farmers’ hard-earned dollars are spent and to ensure that the tax dollars collected from producers are used only for the intended purposes of the program.

Make America — and its food system — healthy again.

Thad Montgomery is the Region XIII director of R-CALF USA.