Anthropocene Campus | Open Call for Participants
We invite young adults, interested in the dairy and climate crisis, to participate in Milk Matters: Dairy in the Anthropocene from 2–5 July, 2026. Over 4 days, participants will critically examine dairy as a nutritional substance shaped by climate, ecology, science and culture.
For decades, governments and health systems have promoted milk as an essential source of protein, calcium, and micronutrients. Milk is embedded in infant feeding practices, school nutrition programmes, and ideas of what a complete diet should look like. The landscape of dairy, driven by cooperatives and industrial processes, has evolved to meet this need. While producing milk requires intensive use of animals, fodder, land, water and infrastructure. The ongoing climate crisis has increased the pressure on these systems. Rainfall patterns change the availability of fodder. Heat stress affects animals and milk yield. Dairy farms spend more to cool. In turn, this affects milk availability and prices. At the same time, concerns about protein intake, calcium deficiency and malnutrition remain real.
These tensions make milk a useful site for cultural inquiry. Milk sits at the intersection of bodies and ecosystems, nutrition and climate. By following milk–how it is produced, processed, consumed and distributed–we can ask sharper questions about what counts as nourishment in a warming world, and who gets to decide that.
At Milk Matters: Dairy in the Anthropocene, we are bringing together nutrition scientists, dairy and veterinary researchers, public health scholars, artists and social scientists together to ask:
Why does dairy hold cultural importance in India?
What role does dairy play, nutritionally, in our diets?
How do dairy systems contribute to the climate?
What might sustainable dairy futures look like?
Key Dates
Deadline for submission: 12 June 2026
Selection of participants: 20 June 2026
Symposium dates: 2-5 July 2026
Themes
Through lectures, discussions, screenings, workshops, tastings, and field visits, participants will engage with themes of:
Milk as Nutrition: Science and Public Policy
Milk Microbiology, Disease, and Public Health
Pastoral Communities, Milk and Ecological Change
Milk in India: The White Revolution and Visual Culture
Contemporary Milk Production: Industrial Systems and Cooperatives
The Future of Milk: Sustainable Production and Alternative Milk
Criteria
The symposium is in-person and free to attend. The selected 20 participants will be provided with:
Travel support within India
Accommodation for selected outstation participants
Meals and refreshments during the symposium
Eligibility
You are a young adult aged 18 to 30 at the time of applying for this symposium
You are a student, artist, creative practitioner or early-career researcher
You have demonstrable interest in engaging at the intersection of dairy and the climate crisis
Selected participants will hear back from us on 20 June 2026. We are not able to provide feedback on specific submissions at any stage of the selection process.
For any queries regarding the open call, please drop us an email at programmes@bengaluru.sciencegallery.com