Milk: Good, bad, or ugly?

By now, you should feel well-informed about the dairy industry and aware of many of the issues farmers confront and activists discuss!

Of course, if you were a real-world journalist and you had to write about the issue, you could use the bullet-point arguments that you created in your quest to formulate a story or a debate article. For now, you will just discuss your points in class. Perhaps you will learn something new from your peers!

You probably have formed some kind of opinion before or during this excercise, but the goal is that you learn to consider what others think and approach controversial issues with a sensitivity to both sides, even while defending your own stance. This is crucial in the agricultural fields, where we experience frequent criticism for certain practices. There is nothing wrong with defending those practices, so long as we pause to listen to the other side and see if there is any truth in the claims.

Can you think of any other issues in agriculture where there are large disagreements or two opposing sides?