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[CNN] When it comes to which milk is better for the planet — dairy or plant-based — environmentalists will say there’s no dispute: Milk made from plants wins every time.
Advances in top dairy-producing countries such as China, Italy, New Zealand and the United States have dramatically increased modern milk output per cow — one US cow now makes four times as much milk as a cow in India — while lowering the animal’s environmental impact. There’s even a cow in Wisconsin, named Selz-Pralle Aftershock 3918, which holds the world record for milk production by a Holstein: 78,170 pounds of milk in 365 days.
Yet worldwide demands on natural resources to feed and water dairy cows remain enormous, according to a widely quoted 2018 meta-analysis of studies on the issue.
The dairy industry uses approximately 10 times as much land and two to 20 times as much water as soy, oat, almond or rice milk production, according to an analysis of the 2018 study by the nonprofit Global Change Data Lab and the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.
Dairy also creates about three times as many greenhouse gas emissions, the analysis found. Burps and poo from ruminating animals such as cattle, sheep and goats generate methane, a greenhouse gas 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide in warming the planet in the span of 20 years, the UN Environment Programme said.