“The kids in school get skim, and they hate it, and they throw it away,” says Troutman said. A 2022 article in Lancaster Farming reported that pro-whole signage had been spotted in at least seven other states, including Kansas and Ohio. There are no formal records of how many bales have been painted or where they are, but Diefendorf estimates she has painted at least 50 in upstate New York. From there, organizing began, and hay bales began to proliferate. It went viral online and spurred media coverage. “I said, ‘I’m going to start advertising that milk is 97 percent fat-free,’” he recalls. Also worrisome for farmers: The USDA is considering eliminating flavored milk in elementary and middle schools when it adopts new school nutrition guidelines for the 2024-2025 school year.ĩ7Milk got its start in late 2018 when Nelson Troutman, a retired dairy farmer from Richland, Pa., placed a wrapped hay bale with a message urging people to drink local whole milk at an intersection near his farm.įrustrated by a listening session with the Pennsylvania Milk Marketing Board-“they wine and dine the farmers, and then they go home and nothing happens”-Troutman decided to take matters into his own hands. Between 18, children’s consumption of milk and milk drinks fell 26 percent, from 1.07 cup-equivalents per person per day to 0.79, according to a 2021 USDA research report.ĭata like this fuels concern that the dairy industry is losing ground with the youngest generation, the people who will become the customers of tomorrow. While not a new trend-consumption has been dropping since the mid-1940s-the decline accelerated faster during the 2010s than in each of the previous six decades. Adding to the stress is that Americans are drinking a lot less milk. The intensifying activism around milk comes at a time of angst and anxiety for dairy farmers, who have struggled to break even for years as costs have risen and prices have slumped. In reality, it’s only about 3.25 percent fat-“virtually 97 percent fat-free,” as the organization’s materials put it.ĭuane Spaulding distributes chocolate milk to students from Greenville Central School District in upstate New York. Outreach and education are a core part of 97Milk’s mission, and the group’s name addresses one common misconception: the mistaken belief that whole milk is all or mostly fat. Spaulding, 64, and Diefendorf, 60, are involved with 97Milk, an all-volunteer organization seeking to reverse the ban on whole milk in public schools. And for those who are so far removed from the farm community, they don’t know.” That’s what goes out in the milk truck every other day. “I don’t want these kids in school thinking that’s the milk we produce,” says Diefendorf, who owns 45 dairy cows. They say whole milk is good for kids and that children will reject milk altogether and miss out on essential nutrients, such as calcium, potassium and vitamin D, if the only options are skim and low fat, which aren’t as tasty. The ban on whole milk in public schools is an ongoing source of discontent for dairy farmers and their allies in agriculture. This is the reaction Spaulding and Diefendorf want. “I completely agree with that,” she says. “So, if anyone can help, it’s a grassroots movement.” “We’d just like to get whole milk back in school as a choice,” Spaulding explains to the adults escorting children through Ag Day attractions. The two are distributing fliers touting whole milk’s nutritional properties at Ag Day, an annual event sponsored by the district’s Future Farmers of America chapter. As Chaga Keeps Trending, Mycologists Worry About Running Outīut on this balmy day in late May, Spaulding, a former dairy farmer, and Ann Diefendorf, a sixth-generation dairy farmer from Seward, N.Y., are giving out whole milk on school grounds.
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