There is no way the 6x yield increase per cow did not negatively affect the taste, nutrition, and quality of the milk. Indeed, most of the "milk" you buy in large industrial countries barely deserves the term - it's got no taste or subtle flavor. It's even worse regarding derived butters and cheeses.<p>Yield is a great and easy thing to optimize becuase it's easy to measure. And if you increase yield at the expense of taste at suffiently slow rate, the change is impercetible to the customer. Happens slowly over decades so that a nice glass of milk is now like drinking dirty wash water. And a nice fat steak becomes ground up crickets and synthetics.<p>Moral of the story. Get your own low efficiency cows.
Meanwhile, there's been an alternative storyline prioritizing other goals: low maintenance, high fertility, good yield on a grass-based or all-grass diet, high portion of milk solids. These genetics are also available on ice, for example, from New Zealand: <a href="https://licnz.com/products-services/lic-cow-breeds/" rel="nofollow">https://licnz.com/products-services/lic-cow-breeds/</a><p>Nearish to me, there's a world-class cheese dairy that's making it work: <a href="https://www.meadowcreekdairy.com/herd" rel="nofollow">https://www.meadowcreekdairy.com/herd</a><p>At my farm, I milk three cows from that herd and distribute the milk and cheese to family, friends, and neighbors. We all agree it's delicious but it's hard to say whether it's the breed, the diet, or the freshness.
Fantastic article. I didn't realize dairy cows lactated ~60lbs/day or ~3.5% of their body weight. Totally insane. Chickens appear to be this way too -- from some quick research Rhode Island Reds are ~3kg, lay ~300 eggs/year and each egg is ~62g.<p>The graph at the end ("US milk yield continues to grow, but falls short of its genetic potential") is interesting. If I saw that graph, I would interpret it as dairy farmers overfitting on the genetic yield potential measure, not as something that needs explanations like climate change.
I put whipped soy milk on my vegan homemade pumpkin pie last night and it was great. Do not miss dairy, and am thankful for modern food innovations that are helping us get past the suffering and environmental devastation of dairy.