As part of my work in and around ‘Jewish Invention’ myths; I noted a particular claim made by the jewish website ‘Kosherica’ concerning ‘Israeli innovation’ which related to allegedly ‘world-leading’ Israeli milk production.
They claim that:
‘11. Milk
Israel found a way to used technology in a most amazing way. Israeli cows produce far more milk than other countries: about 10.5 tons a year. Far exceeding Germany by 50% and the taste is delicious and clean. Based on a combination of air conditioning, hygiene and constant monitoring and pedometers, which tell whether the animals get fidgety. It’s been found that relaxed and comfortable cows produce far more milk, thus the use of research, animal behavior science and the monitoring equipment’s were used again, to make a naturally occurring thing better. The huge flow of delicious milk and dairy products are a testament to this clever use of technology.’ (1)
Now did some digging in and around this and when you do you quickly come upon a June 2024 ‘Jerusalem Post’ article by Yuval Barnea that claims that:
‘Israel has the highest milk yield per cow in the world at 12,265 kg. per cow per year (p.c/p.y), which was a 1.6% increase from the previous year.
Israel was far ahead of its closest competitors, with Denmark only producing 10,571 kg. p.c/p.y and Estonia following closely behind at 10,183 kg. p.c/p.y. Countries famous for their dairy, such as the Netherlands, lagged even further behind at 9,086 kg. p.c/p.y.’ (2)
Barnea’s source for this is ‘The Dairy School’ which sounds unbiased and authoritative, but it is actually a marketing-cum-hasbara website operated by the Israeli government to get people – read non-jews – to purchase expensive Israeli ‘dairy consulting’ services and which gets its information from the ‘Israel Dairy Board’ and the ‘Israel Central Statistics Bureau’. (3)
This seems a little odd: doesn’t it?
You’d have thought if this was actually true then you would have heard about it and certainly it doesn’t appear that the rest of the global dairy industry has at all with the global hub ‘The Dairy Site’ not seeming to have any mention at all of it that I can find and when it does list the top and innovative producers in every element of milk production; it doesn’t even mention Israel. (4)
Now unpicking this Israeli hasbara claims was difficult because of a lack of specific data sources but eventually I found the answer in how this ‘average yield’ figure is tabulated in that dairy cows usually only live up to their third lactation because they are slaughtered after that. (5)
Now if you calculate average milk yield per dairy cow over their lifespan this means that the longer the cow is a dairy cow then the lower level of lactation you get because the dairy cow is increasingly not in her prime milk production phase anymore. Thus, the longer you keep the dairy cow around; the lower your average milk yield per cow gets.
This means that if you are ruthlessly sending your dairy cattle to the abattoir sooner rather than later then you will get a much higher milk yield per cow.
Milk statistics bear this out with Saudi Arabia, Israel and South Korea having the biggest average milk yield per cow but yet not in the Top 15 milk producers or dairy cow herd numbers in the world in 2012. (6)
What do these three countries have in common?
They have very limited cattle grazing potential and large domestic beef markets.
Thus what is happening here is that because while American and European culling of dairy cattle has declined over recent years due – (7) so dairy cattle are producing milk for longer thus bringing the average down along with much larger herds – Israel, Saudi Arabia and South Korea have much smaller dairy cow herds being culled much quicker for domestic beef production; (8) thus driving up their milk yield per cow. This is because there is an increasing fertility crisis among dairy cows (9) caused by a push to make each dairy cow as high yielding as possible in terms of milk production. (10)
In truth the Israeli milk yield is an artificial statistic that sounds great but is heavily manipulated by Israel having a small dairy herd and ruthlessly culling any perceived ‘low milk yield’ dairy cow in addition to that herd being largely bred by artificial insemination – using bull sperm imported from the US incidentally – (11) which stands at lesser than 5 percent in the US (12) compared to 40-50 percent in Israel. (13)
This means in practice that the Israeli milk industry is basically a milk version of a battery farm based on stealing the more natural genetics of American and European cows rather than breeding such animals themselves and only achieves its alleged ‘world-leading’ average milk yields because it slaughters dairy cows much quicker than America and Europe while also having a relatively small dairy herd.
In other words: it is a meaningless statistic in the same way that the number of jews who have won Nobel Prizes is largely a meaningless statistic which is why the international dairy industry simply ignores the Israeli claims and attempts to sell their ‘nutrition secrets’ for cash as if it were meaningful then you’d expect the long-suffering cash-poor dairy industry to absolutely jump at a way to massively increase production per dairy cow and thus decrease their overhead costs by decreasing their dairy herd sizes.
But they haven’t.
Why?
Because the Israelis are basically lying through their teeth.
References
(1) https://kosherica.com/10-awesome-israeli-inventions/
(2) https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-805921
(3) https://www.dairyschool.co.il/israeli-dairy-industry-facts-and-figures/
(4) For example: https://www.thedairysite.com/articles/2526/a-summary-of-milk-production-across-the-world#
(5) https://www.compassioninfoodbusiness.com/awards/good-dairy-award/standard-intensive-milk-production/
(6) https://www.ciwf.org.uk/media/5235182/Statistics-Dairy-cows.pdf, pp. 1-2
(7) For example: https://www.agproud.com/articles/60126-large-decline-in-dairy-cow-culling-seen-in-june; https://www.agproud.com/articles/60821-november-summary-on-dairy-cows-culled-for-beef
(8) https://www.euromeatnews.com/Article-Israel-increases-imports-and-per-capita-consumption-of-beef/7968; https://www.gov.il/en/pages/ministry_of_agriculture_in_analyzing_the_beef_market_in_israel
(9) https://www.bovinevetonline.com/news/industry/fewer-cows-are-being-culled-heres-main-reason-why
(10) H. Dobson, R. F. Smith, M. D. Royal, C. H. Knight, I. M. Sheldon, 2007, ‘The high producing dairy cow and its reproductive performance’, Reproduction in Domestic Animals, Vol. 42, No. 2, pp. 18-20
(11) https://www.israeldairy.com/general-view-israeli-dairy-farming
(12) Juhani Taponen, 2009, ‘Fixed-time artificial insemination in beef cattle’, Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica, Vol. 51, No. 48 (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2790447)
(13) https://www.israeldairy.com/general-view-israeli-dairy-farming