What Is Greenwashing? The Problem Today
After this summer’s release of a data dashboard from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), it’s no longer a secret that the beef and dairy industries have a long history of underreporting their own carbon emissions. The data show that a large portion of the emissions that have been left out of their reporting are further away in the life-cycle of dairy than cow excretions, and much of the underreported emissions are from gases like methane and nitrous oxide rather than carbon dioxide.
Since the release of the dashboard, the Animal Legal Defense Fund has filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the US Department of Agriculture and the US’s Beef Checkoff Program to try to obtain information related to the dissemination of many false and misleading environmental claims (a deceptive practice called “greenwashing”) in marketing materials that the Checkoff Program has funded.
What are Checkoff Programs?
Checkoff programs, also called research and promotion programs, are overseen by the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS). Their purpose is to provide information about and promote US agricultural products, regardless of brand, and are funded through a ‘checkoff’ system where producers pay into the system based on the units they sell of a given product.
We are in a time where suspicion of animal agriculture’s claims to its own sustainability have been growing, but the public faces powerful opposition from the government via the Beef Checkoff Program and many powerful industry giants. As suspicion about the greenwashing of beef and dairy products grows, it is helpful to break down exactly what the IATP’s data covers.
Why Worry About Agricultural Emissions?
Methane and nitrous oxide have, respectively, over 27 and over 270 times the warming impact in 100 years compared to the same level of carbon dioxide emissions, so these are not the kind of emissions reporting oversights that should be taken lightly. Only recently have methane reporting regulations come into effect around the world, and in the US what regulations that exist are constantly in flux due to the Trump administration ceasing to enforce SEC rules about climate reporting. What rules that exist do not require breaking down emissions reporting by gas emitted.
Scope 2 and 3 emissions are often from parts of the process that are more difficult to measure and distant in the supply chain, including upstream and downstream activities from the farmers themselves (e.g. nitrous oxide emitted from fertilizer use on feed crops). It is easy to conceal these emissions and difficult to unearth the truth without careful, holistic knowledge of one’s entire value chain.
It is important, of course, to remember that the science behind all of this is hotly contested. At least, it might seem that way at first. Certainly, there’s plenty of scientists who make such claims, but there’s a glaring red flag. In reality, most of the big names who publish research that claims beef or dairy can be (or, sometimes are) environmentally sustainable sources of food are funded either directly or indirectly by the beef and dairy industries.
So– who is getting funded by industry interests?
Frank Milthoener and CLEAR: Stretching the Truth
Frank Milthoener is one of the chief researchers who, for the last few decades, has been driving big dairy’s push towards calling itself sustainable. Along with heading the Clarity and Leadership for Environmental Awareness and Research (CLEAR) Center at UC Davis, he publishes works that largely call into question the claims widely accepted among researchers that methane emissions are a huge problem for the climate. He has also received funding, to the tune of over 5 million dollars, from beef and dairy industry interests like the Beef Checkoff Program over the past 20 years.
One of his most publicly visible accomplishments happened during the early stages of the proposal of the Green New Deal back in 2019. Some staff associated with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez reached out to Milthoener as an expert on agriculture’s contributions to climate change, walking back language on a factsheet that referred to “cow farts.” Cows actually produce methane themselves largely through belching, and Milthoener’s hour-plus-long call, he believes, helped “set the record straight.”
However, the ordeal somehow led to AOC’s office removing any reference to cows from the factsheet, despite the very clear role of animal agriculture in climate change. Milthoener himself doesn’t deny that animal agriculture is a large GHG emitter, typically using comparison to other huge emitters to downplay the role of animal agriculture.
Milthoener is perhaps unique in an era of science-denial under Trump in that he does not seek to actively question climate change or even the idea that agriculture might play a significant role in it. His work has instead been to call into question just how significant that role is, especially favoring comparisons to fossil fuel giants. In one tweet he called combatting the use of fossil fuels the “the 800 lb gorilla” when it comes to reducing climate change.
It is an inconvenient truth, of course, that once methane emissions are considered, the IATP data on the top 15 meat and dairy producers shows that they emit more greenhouse gases than oil companies like Shell or Exxon-Mobil. If this is inconvenient for animal agriculture and Milthoener’s claims, then the fact that we will not succeed in meeting any of the Paris Agreement climate thresholds without global shifts towards plant-based food systems is downright ranklesome. Despite these realities, the dairy industry has a penchant for claiming its commitment to sustainability, and even to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Milthoener is not the only expert to dispute the extent of cattle’s role in continuing climate change. Much of his CLEAR Center’s funding for its research into beef and dairy, unsurprisingly, comes from beef and dairy interests. A coterie of researchers work for the center, continuing to produce research on animal agriculture which by and large skirt the more radical conclusions about animal agriculture itself from the rest of climate academia.
Other Researchers and Centers with Industry Funding
Colorado State University has established the AgNext center, which similarly produces research that suggests the potential sustainability of animal agriculture. AgNext has even put out infographics that suggest animal ag is instrumental to feeding humanity, and that animal ag’s role in GHG emissions is much slimmer than other sectors.
Agnext’s director, Dr. Kimberely Stackhouse-Lawson, was a PhD. student of Milthoener’s and has a history of working with the beef industry. Once again, tracing the money to the centers and their directors demonstrates that there is a clear connection between beef and dairy funds and the research aimed to paint the industries as sustainable and instrumental to feeding our growing population, when there is plenty of research to suggest just the opposite.
Yet another prominent voice who is optimistic about the future of animal agriculture, of the dairy industry in particular, is Juan Tricarico. Dr. Tricarico’s research focuses on improving the sustainability of dairy production and he has contributed to larger analyses of dairy’s GHG emissions. He contributes to articles like this one, saying dairy land use is a sustainable way to source nutrients and citing a study that, quelle surprise, is also funded by the Dairy Checkoff.
There are plenty of studies, on the contrary, that suggest land use change itself is a major driver of climate change, and the study Tricarico cites fails to account for the massive increases in land that will be needed to support dairy cows in the future in both cropland and cattle ranges, especially given that climate change itself is making dairy production harder.
Tracarico works as Vice President of the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy, closely associated with the Dairy Checkoff program in the US. The dairy checkoff program also produces infographics and articles like the one mentioned in the previous paragraph on which Tricarico is a significant voice. Much like the Beef Checkoff now, the USDA’s handling of the Dairy Checkoff has come under fire in the past for its lack of transparency, specifically regarding its spending.
Why Greenwashing Matters
The throughline in all of the researchers and centers described in this article who challenge the severity of the role of animal agriculture in climate change is that they are all connected to and in some way financially bolstered by federal checkoff programs.
Some of the researchers listed are better at disclosing these associations than others, Milthoener in particular having a dubious record regarding such disclosures. While certainly unethical, concealing or failing to disclose these ties is second in significance to the ties themselves. It is in the best financial interest of these researchers and centers to uphold the existence of animal agriculture. No one could blame them for their frequent voicing of opinions against those who wish to see animal agriculture reduced or eliminated: this is a threat to their entire livelihoods.
But, honestly, which would you rather have? A future in which New York City is still above the rising tide? A future for your children and grandchildren in which we actually meet the goals we set in the Paris Agreement? Or a future where we still have animal products at every meal, but the warming climate causes millions to die by 2050 alone?
The only way to inoculate ourselves against the massive amounts of capital the checkoff programs (and, for that matter, fossil fuel lobbies) have at their disposal is to stay curious about the sources of the research and advertisements we see on a daily basis while remaining open-minded to credible information. This is a good strategy in general for fighting the dangers of rising anti-intellectualism in the US. The more you challenge your own presuppositions and the information you see in ads, the less susceptible you will be to greenwashing.
