The Duplicity of Dairy Management

The Facts: Dairy Management Inc. is a Government department created by the then President Bill Clinton in 1995 which builds on the Dairy Production Stabilization Act, which was drafted around 1983. This almost-privately run department, with a CEO like leader has a single-minded focus. It is to make Americans eat more cheese and drink more milk. As a consequence of its persistent efforts, a typical American in 2010 eats more than 30 pounds of cheese compared to a third of this amount a few decades back.

People born in the 70s were brain washed into believing that drinking milk is essential to good heath. That cheese is high-protein and hence very essential for humans is an ingrained thought to most of us. Various incarnations of butter, cheese, yogurt and milk stare innocuously at us begging us to consume them, across stores. Problem is, nobody tells you that this is a marketing push by the same department whose sister concerns are lambasting the American public to reduce their cheese consumption and raising concerns about growing obesity due to increased cheese consumption.

On the one hand, the department promotes cheese through Pizza and fast food chains and on the other, as recent NY Times research indicates it also promotes reducing cheese consumption for health benefits. Apparently they are feeding the population with subsidized cheap high calories while blasting them to show more restraint and not fall victim to obesity. I am sorry I don't get this at all. A department that has such self-interest in making the most out of its $140 million budget surely is not in a position to talk about obesity. Its easy to see the conflict of interest in this.

The problem is also more inherent to how capitalism has evolved in the last hundred years. While losses, in terms of health-care costs and obesity concerns, have become public, the profits, from rising dairy production, are private. Much like the banks, who keep their profits but rub their losses on public through threats (real or perceived is up to the reader to decide) of systemic collapses, these institutions have the mandate to increase dairy consumption but also "fight" public health concerns.

Except for the astute observer, such things largely go unnoticed by the general public. Praise needs to be bestowed upon NY Times for bringing such issues out. This is exactly what journalism was born to do. In open democracies, transparency only comes from media when our representatives unleash these duplicitous schemes on the public. In the end, its up to us to decide whether eating that double-cheese crusted pizza will increase our health-care bills or not. If we don't show that restraint, I guess we cant criticize the Government for not reforming the health care issues. But what about those marketing campaigns I saw as a kid which made me say cheese? Marketing should be left to the businessmen themselves and not pushed by the Government. If a Govt. Department markets dairy products aggressively, and makes deals with chains like Dominoes, to push more cheese, they have no ground to tell the same public not to eat that cheese.