Being constantly badgered about the drop in milk consumption had me in a rage as I tried to substantiate the value of our dairy producer-funded milk marketing scheme, while on Rural Route Radio with Trent Loos and Kyle Bauer.

With the statistics being thrown at me right and left, I found it difficult to rationalize why people aren’t drinking more milk. They are eating more ice cream and consuming more cheese but fluid milk consumption has dropped over the years – and I’m bewildered as to why.

We have more flavors, more varieties, better packaging and pretty stars donning milk mustaches, but we still can’t convince people to drink milk when they sit down to dinner. Schools serve it for lunch, they have milk vending machines and we have research to prove weightlifters can bulk up better with milk – but still, a decline.

We have one of the most recognizable slogans on the planet that has been copied by nearly everyone, dairy promoters promoting in schools across the country and Rulon Gardner as one of our biggest success stories, and still, teenage girls are calcium deficient.
While taking the hits on the radio, I fired back that the dairy industry has the best marketing campaign when compared to beef, pork and chicken. But I was set back on my heels when Kyle Bauer said, “If milk consumption is dropping, then your marketing plan is failing.”

That realization hit me like a ton of bricks, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.

Why isn’t our milk marketing campaign working? I like our posters. I like our pencils. I like our promoters. Is it because milk isn’t the only beverage offered at dinnertime?  Is it because adults decide they don’t like milk, so they allow their kids to drink whatever they choose for lunch?

Maybe it’s because families don’t sit around the dinner table anymore but find themselves eating in shifts in front of the TV, and the pop of the top of a soda can is heard too often.

Maybe it’s because there are vending machines filled with soda littering the halls of our schools and it’s easily accessible. Maybe it’s because there is too much controversy over what milk is healthy and what milk is not. Maybe it’s because there are too many choices and people can’t make up their minds.

Or maybe it’s because consumerism has gotten the best of us and we are constantly striving for more and more and the only way we can get more is if we work more to earn more money to buy more. And, while we work more and more to get more and more, we are leaving important choices like whether to drink milk or soda up to our children – who are coming home to an empty house and have no one to stop them when they reach for that can of pop.

At this point, I don’t have the answers but I do know personal responsibility is where the solution begins. If I don’t take an active part in milk promotion, who will?

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers with questions or comments for Melissa Hart may write to her in care of this publication.

Published on Oct. 7, 2009