How Big Data Transformed the Dairy Industry

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/05/the-perfect-milk-machine-how-big-data-transformed-the-dairy-industry/256423/

by altrus • 14 years ago

79 45 14 years ago

theatlantic.com

edhallen• 14 years ago

This is a great addition to the unfortunately too limited category of articles about how big data / analysis changed actual decision-making.

That said, the definition of big data used by this article doesn't strike me as what I would think of as big data. Based on what it says, the dairy industry was changed by analysis and data collection but nothing that couldn't be stored on your typical phone. The article hints at big data (via greater genetic analysis) transforming the dairy industry in the future, but the massive changes in cow DNA so far are seemingly due to "small" data.

This confusion of big data with just solid analysis and decision-making happens a lot, but does a good job of highlighting how much progress there is to be made in using data to drive decisions (independent of how much data we use).

huggyface• 14 years ago

You've written what I was planning on posting. This is classic data aggregation and analysis. while Big Data is a trendy term, I see and perceive nothing in it that qualifies as even a particularly large set, much less what most see as Big Data.

Falling39• 14 years ago

I realize I'm coming at this from a different angle than a lot of other HNers, but for me this is good science gone wrong.

Dairy cows are some of the most mistreated and unhealthy animals in the agriculture system. This push for efficiency has created a large group of animals with very little genetic diversity. They are kept on a stream of antibiotics because one bad outbreak can take down the entire group. They often develop mastitis and cancer is common by the they are 5 or 6 ("retirement age") due to poor nutrition, over-milking, and living conditions.

This kind of science really excites me, but the applications are almost always depressing and we should absolutely not be lauding squeezing out every last "inefficiency" in an animal based industry.

JoeAltmaier• 14 years ago

Lots of worse inbreeding problems - show dogs, fish etc.

I live in Iowa, sorry I haven't seen the mistreatment you mention. I'm sure its a problem, any time large amounts of animals become dollars. Puppy mills, fish farms. But compared to beef cattle, dairy have it made.

I'm not even sure humans are immune. Talk about a constant stream of antibiotics, low genetic diversity, inhumane living conditions, cancer rates.

Falling39• 14 years ago

Not to run off on a tangent, but you're wrong about the dairy beef comparison. Before heading to a feedlot, most beef cattle spend around a year of their lives grazing often allowed to stay with their mothers. Beef cattle are killed much sooner, but have something resembling a natural life for a time. Newborn dairy calves are removed almost immediately so no milk is wasted on them. Male dairy cows are used for veal (and I'm sure you know how that goes). The females are placed into small "igloos" with no chance for grazing or physical contact until they are old enough to reproduce. Then it's 4 or 5 years of constant pregnancy and milking until they are "spent" at the ripe ole age of 6.

I'm honestly not trying to be preachy here as I know this isn't the appropriate venue, but this is just not an area I feel anyone should be commending for their efficiency.

msellout• 14 years ago

Don't forget all the people who now save a bit on their milk. This could add up to a significant amount annually, especially for the most poor. I'm not sure that I care about the living conditions of cattle at the expense of the living conditions of humans. Now, if you'd like to tax cattle farmers for the amount of horror and tragedy they create and then redistribute the tax proceeds as a lump sum to all citizens, that should properly balance the ethical situation.

mseebach• 14 years ago

That wont work. Assuming that the reason for the bad plight of the cows is that the worse treatment is more profitable, not that the farmer is sadistic, the farmer has two options: A) Conventional at cost X per unit and B) Animal friendly at cost X+N per unit. Now, to achieve your goal, you tax A at at least N per unit and subsidise B at the same rate. Now, people start buying B in favour of A and the farmers shift production to B, and soon production of A ceases - but as this is the object of the taxation, the tax revenue disappear and with it your budget for subsidising B. B now costs X+N.

Falling39• 14 years ago

Well I for one care about the treatment of other living creatures especially when weighed against what is essentially a luxury product.

If you're really concerned about the living conditions, you'd want more expensive, better quality milk.

I think we'd be better of, as a first step, ending subsidies to dairy farmers and enforcing some basic health and humane regulations. I mean, there are many dairy farms where discarded chicken meat and feces are fed to dairy cows. Here's a story about a guy feeding doughnuts and cookies. http://www.cheeseslave.com/farmer-feeds-doughnuts-and-cookie... Cows have very specialized digestive systems meant for processing grass. Even if we grant that cow's milk is a good thing for us to have, certainly it doesn't apply with diets like that.

rmason2• 14 years ago

My guess is that you haven't spent any actual time on dairy farms. Early in my career I worked in the fertilizer business and a large part of my customer base were dairy farmers.

I worked with dairy farmers with as few as 100 cows and as many as 1200. These were family farms and they cared well for the animals. Antibiotics were only used on sick cows and not as a daily regimen. I really respect those guys, most of them are far better businessmen than the tradesmen in town.

The few times that I saw animals mistreated were farmers who weren't very long for the dairy business.

mumrah• 14 years ago

As with most agriculture in the US (assuming you're talking about the US), family farms are the exception - not the rule.

spacemanaki2• 14 years ago

> as few as 100 cows and as many as 1200

I think those are actually pretty small numbers, and might not even count as CAFOs (confined animal feeding operation), right?

Falling39• 14 years ago

There's this prevalent stereotype about vegans that they are very naive and get all of their information from peta and the like. I've worked with hundreds of farm animals and seen conditions even on small family farms. I've been in contact with many animals that were neglected and abused from small farms. Of course the situations are the worst on CAFOs, but certainly not limited to them. I'm sure I have a higher standard than most, but the farms that even approach respectful treatment of animals are in a tiny minority. And those are the products for which you pay a large premium.

16s2• 14 years ago

Also, milk/dairy products in general are chocked-full of cow hormones that cause acne, baldness and prostrate cancer in men. It's best to not consume it.

Sources:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18194824

http://www.cancer.gov/newscenter/qa/2008/PCPTQandA

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dihydrotestosterone

1053r• 14 years ago

The first link is a study that found a correlation between skim milk consumption and acne in teenage boys. It by no means conclusively shows causation. Perhaps teenage boys who have a hormone condition which leads to acne also have taste preferences which cause them to enjoy skim milk more, or perhaps skim milk really causes acne to teenage boys. The point is, we don't know.

The second and third links talk about a study for a prostate cancer drug and a human androgen hormone. The word "milk" does not appear on either of those pages.

Please make an effort to be more careful in your citations. When one adopts the tone and form of authority, by citing links to official looking urls, people sometimes take the advice offered without fact checking. And in this case, it could cause people to stop consuming dairy and start consuming something else, with unknown effects.

edit: The P-Value for skim milk was the only one lower than the .05 significance level. So even in the cited study, there does not appear to be a correlation between whole, 2%, or 1% milk with acne.

continuations2• 14 years ago

Milk consumption has been linked to increased risks of many diseases including ovarian cancer, prostate cancer, bone fracture:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15203374

"In conclusion, we found a positive association between milk consumption and prostate cancer."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15069693

"We observed a 2-fold higher risk of the serous ovarian cancer subtype among those in the highest category of lactose consumption compared to the lowest

"For each 11-gram increase in lactose consumption (the approximate amount in one glass of milk), we observed a 20% increase in risk of serous cancers

"Women who consumed one or more servings of skim or low-fat milk daily had a 32% higher risk of any ovarian cancer and a 69% higher risk of serous ovarian cancer compared to women consuming 3 or less servings monthly

"Our findings provide some support for the hypothesis that lactose intake increases risk of epithelial ovarian cancer."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9224182

"Women who drank two or more glasses of milk per day had relative risks of 1.45 for hip fracture and 1.05 for forearm fracture when compared with women consuming one glass or less per week."

yuhong• 14 years ago

Yea, why do you think the diary industry is fighting against raw milk?

continuations2• 14 years ago

Not only are dairy cows mistreated, their babies are also slaughtered because of milk.

Like any mammals cows only produce milk when they have babies. To keep their milk flowing cows are impregnated constantly. When the babies are born they are taken away from their mothers. Male babies are slaughtered. Dairy cows are also slaughtered at a young age when their milk production drops.

Many people mistakenly thought no animals are harmed in milk production. That is not true.

Volscio• 14 years ago

Just a note: published May 1, 2012

fghh45sdfhr32• 14 years ago

A high degree if genetic selections is a high risk thing. For a long time you just get a lot more of what ever you want, milk, eggs, etc. And then a virus appears and kills 99.9% or more of your animals because they were all so closely related.

The free market rewards the up side of closely related species but does not cost you anything for the potential catastrophe. Day to day the probability of a catastrophic disease is near 0, but in the very long term it is near certain. Our free markets have no smart way of pricing that kind of stuff.

That's why we've already lost several varieties of banana to diseases.

Falling39• 14 years ago

Oh yeah that's particularly scary (if you happen to like bananas). Most commercial bananas plants are clones. This leads to strict regulations on commercial bananas and it's still pretty likely we'll see them disappear one day.

Qworg2• 14 years ago

Woah, wait a moment. One variety of commercial banana is mostly clones (the traditional yellow Chicquita/Dole type). There are many other kinds of bananas - less familiar, but also different genetically. Bananas won't disappear - only one type will.

pm90• 14 years ago

Hey, I found your comment on bananas interesting. Where can I read up more about it?

lightcatcher• 14 years ago

I'm also interested, did some quick searching and found http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_disease

soperj• 14 years ago

look up gros michel

fghh45sdfhr32• 14 years ago

This is a good start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gros_Michel_banana

Many wild, seed packet bananas exist, but all (as far as I know?) bananas that we eat have no seeds and are actually all clones. Thus they are all under the extinction by disease threat.

Someone could in theory continually keep developing new strains of bananas in case of future diseases. Practically however there is no profit in that. You could argue a charity or NGO should do stuff like this.

mng2• 14 years ago

There was a nice article in the New Yorker last year about it. Not available online but you can probably find it at your local library.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/01/10/110110fa_fact_...

dctoedt• 14 years ago

> Our free markets have no smart way of pricing that kind of [potential disease catastrophe].

So true. Ireland's devastating "potato famine" was another example of the catastrophe that can result from free-market-drive overdependence on a single monoculture --- in this case the "lumper" potato variety, which was susceptible to the Phytophthora infestans blight --- with no genetic diversity [1]. It's estimated that the famine led to the death or emigration (in roughly equal numbers) of some 20% of the island's population [2].

(One of my grandmothers was first-generation Irish-American; I remember her telling stories of the famine that she'd heard passed down in her family.)

[1] http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/agriculture...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)#Blight_i...

How Big Data Transformed the Dairy Industry

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