Why are there calls for a milk boycott? ‘It’s the beginnings of a conspiracy theory’

Read time: 4 minutes

In brief:

• Arla Foods, the UK's largest dairy co-operative, is trialing Bovaer, a feed additive that reduces cow methane emissions. This has sparked a social media backlash, with people such as Reform UK's Richard Tice calling for a boycott and labeling it "woke milk".
• Bovaer has been approved by food safety authorities in 29 countries and does not pass into milk. Despite this, conspiracy theories have emerged.
• The News Agents say the political right is increasingly skeptical of expert opinion, while the left is aligning more with scientific institutions.

What’s the story?

When you poured your cup of tea or coffee this morning did you stop to ask yourself if the milk you were using was ‘woke milk?’

Because that’s what Reform’s Deputy Leader Richard Tice is calling Arla Foods, the UK’s biggest dairy co-operative.

The company announced that it would begin a trial involving Bovaer, an additive which has been approved for use by both the European Food Safety Authority and the UK Food Standards Agency, on 30 of its farms.

The makers of Bovaer say when added to cow feeds in small quantities, it reduces methane produced by cows, in an effort to tackle climate change, which these emissions contribute to greatly.

“It's a simple green objective,” Jon Sopel explains on The News Agents.

“It's not to sell more milk. It's not to sell milk cheaper. It's not to dilute it. It’s to make it so that the cows expel less methane out of their bottoms”.

The tweet announcing the trial, which will take place with supermarkets Aldi, Morrisons and Tesco, has been viewed over 6 million times and had 13,000 replies.

It has sparked backlash on social media, with some people threatening to boycott Arla products in anger.

“Online users have turned this into something that I guess we would call the beginnings of a conspiracy theory”, Emily Maitlis explains.

Why are people threatening to boycott Arla Food products?

Richard Tice, deputy leader of Reform UK, tweeted: “I am boycotting ARLA as are millions others; let’s force them to stop this madness.

“Go woke go broke”.

Other social media users are raging, not at their milk becoming woke, but at another additive making its way into the human food chain.

Tice’s Reform colleague, Rupert Lowe, tweeted saying if food contains Bovaer he “won’t be touching it”.

“No conspiracy, I just want my food to be as natural as possible. If that's 'populism', then so be it,” he said.

Videos on TikTok show people pouring Arla-made milk down the sink and throwing tubs of (the notoriously expensive) Lurpak butter in the bin.

“A small percentage of TikTok is up in arms because they don't like being told about things that experts have approved. What you're hearing is, ‘why are people putting this in our food without asking? Why are people forcing this upon us without letting us know’” Emily says.

“It ignores the fact that, frankly, we have had things added to our food and our water for decades”.

Conspiracy theories have stretched as far as linking the trial to US billionaire Bill Gates - a baseless claim.

One social media user posted: “Guess who has been funding this? None other than Bill Gates”.

The tweet has been viewed over two million times, with Elon Musk replying, simply writing “!!”.

Bill Gates in fact has no link to Arla foods but has invested in Rumin8, a rival start-up for methane-reducing animal feed supplements.

What is Bovaer and should people be concerned about it?

Bovaer, also known as 3-Nitrooxypropanol (3-NOP), is a feed additive that prevents cows from producing methane by inhibiting the enzymes in their stomachs that create the gas.

Arla says Bovaer could reduce methane emissions produced by cows by up to 27 per cent.

Methane is responsible for 30% of the current rise in global temperature, and the gas produced by agriculture is the second biggest contributor to emissions in our atmosphere.

The additive is metabolised by the cows so does not pass into the milk.

The FSA safety assessment concluded there are no safety concerns when Bovaer is used at the approved dose and “Milk from cows given Bovaer is safe to drink”.

It has been approved for use in 29 countries including in the EU, Australia, Canada and the US.

An Arla Foods spokesperson, said: “The science tells us that it is both proven safe for consumers and effective in reducing emissions – and it does not get into the milk, so isn't in our products. Together with our farmer owners, this is an important part of our efforts to bring down the carbon footprint of the food we produce.”

What's The News Agents take?

“This is based on, apparently, nothing. And yet it's taken hold,” Jon says.

Thinking about why that could be, Lewis says he thinks it’s part of “a wider political shift”.

“The left is becoming the party of institutions, of scientists, of experts, of respect for all of those things, and the right is increasingly treating those things in a way that is completely opposite to what they used to be, as being highly skeptical of them.”

All conspiracy theories, Emily says, involve “the creation of an ‘us vs them’... It's what we've always known about populism.”

Lewis believes that, in fairness, “experts in different fields over the last 20 years have been de legitimised,” thinking about foreign policy experts in the Iraq War and financial experts in the 2008 financial crisis, for example.

This isn’t helped when the people in those institutions don’t take accountability for their failings.

“It has created the space for people on the right – and I abhor this sort of politics – but it has created the space to allow people to fill this vacuum”.

And as anyone who has ever tried to disprove a conspiracy theorist will know - it’s a hard battle to win.

“It's virtually impossible to stop it,” Jon says.

“Because when you say, ‘but experts say this is bulls**t’, you get ‘well, they would say that wouldn’t they’”.

“I do think we probably have to shift our tone a bit,” Lewis says.

“I think our tone, previously, I would include myself in this, has been, to say; ‘This is just crazy. This is mad’”.

“I think we have to really try and think about, particularly in the media, the way we take people with us and not just dismiss these concerns, because they are real, they build on worries which have long existed. And what we can't do is just dismiss them”.

We can't dismiss them,” Jon agrees, “but we can arch an eyebrow”.

Listen in full on The News Agents