It's a no-brainer to promote breast feeding, and the proportion of mothers breastfeeding can be very much swayed by cultural, advertising, etc influences. Hence the reason to have an actual platform to say, breastfeeding has clear health benefits over formula, to educate people, and to support it at the time of birth.
You can look at the history of rate of breastfeeding in the US to see this and how formula manufacters were very aggressive in promoting formula over breast milk, not just in cases where it was needed, but to increase their profits and to change what was the "cultural norm" (formula is better, breast feeding is for the poor). Hence giving Moms free formula in the hospital, not being educated, and then when their lactation dries up having to go to 100% formula. When I had my kids yes we were given a ton of free stuff from the formula manufacterers.
Nonetheless I think it's great there IS baby formula for the situations where a woman can't or does not want to breastfeed and ultimately, it is a personal decision of the mom.
JR885 benefits of breastfeeding is not "in the noise". There have been multiple large scale studies of this.
The most well known is that of immune function, allergies, and also healthy weight gain (not too much and not too little) but there are other benefits that are being studied as well, including reduced likelihood of ear infections, type 1 diabetes, childhood leukemia, neurological development and maternal outcomes including postpartum depression.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/129/3/e827