While consumers were savoring a victory in Pennsylvania over dairy labels, Indiana has quietly introduced legislation that would stop farmers from telling consumers whether artificial hormones have been used in the production of their dairy products.
It’s the same issue that raised such a grass-roots ruckus in Pennsylvania last week that the Governor had to step in to stop a labeling ban that was set for February first.
Labels are the only way consumers can learn whether their dairy products have been produced with the use of the controversial milk hormone rbGH or rBST, commercially known as Posilac and made by Monsanto.
And that’s the point says Rep. William Friend who introduced House Bill 1300.
Rep. Friend tells IB News that consumers don’t need to be able to choose because the milk isn’t any different.
He says, “The reason for the bill is that there is no lab test that can definitely say you are using or not because it is a naturally occurring hormone in every glass of milk regardless of its source."
Many consumers believe there is a difference. Monsanto published studies show milk from treated cows has increased levels of a spin-off hormone IGF-1, that's been linked to prostate and colon cancer. Given a choice, Consumers Union finds that 88 percent of those polled believe milk should be labeled. That has driven the double digit climb in the sale of dairy products produced without Posilac.
HB 1300 is as much about money as milk.
“The companies are trying gain market advantage with the same techniques used to market organic, that is hormone free or rBST free,” says Rep. Friend.
So House Bill 1300 makes labeling more difficult by amending the state's “Milk Labeling Standards” and expanding the definition of the "misbranding” of food.
Now besides “false and misleading” a label will be considered illegal if it contains a “compositional claim that cannot be confirmed through laboratory analysis” or “compositional or production-related claim that is supported solely by sworn statements, affidavits or testimonials.”
The bill is directed at dairy.
Farmers who swear not to use rbGH sign affidavits as a pledge to consumers and the purchaser.
So for farmers not keen on using Monsanto’s genetically engineered hormone on their cows, the label that says “rbGH-free” or “Our Farmers Pledge” No Artificial Growth Hormones” -- will be illegal when the bill goes into effect July 1.
Rep. Friend says he introduced the bill after hearing from farmers in his district who wanted to be able to continue using the FDA approved hormone for increased milk production and profit.
He tells IB News, “Usually they are individual proprietors who are milking maybe 50 to 200 cows and they are selling their milk to Kroger or Dean Foods or Prairie Farms. There is a movement afoot in the industry for the processors to go around to the farmers with an affidavit in hand that says I, as a producer, swear I do not use rbst.”
That’s what happened to Michael Yoder, 53, a dairy farmer from Middlebury, Indiana. Yoder says he’s been a farmer all his life and used rBST on about 40 percent of his herd of 400.
No longer. By February 1, all of his dairy cows must be weaned off rbST. He feels he's the victim of strong armed tactics.
“The people who pick up my milk said if you don’t sign they’re not going to pick up my milk starting January first. So we had to sign,” Yoder tells IB News. “By forcing us they can say the entire milk industry is not using, so they can label as "No Added Hormones and Antibiotics.""
Yoder says weaning his herd off the hormone will cost him about $120,000 in reduced milk production while Kroger and Dean will charge more for artificial hormone-free milk. There's something in it for him too.
“I’m being paid about $30,000 to $40,000 additional because I signed the affidavit, but that goes away after one year. So most of us are irritated with Dean Food and Kroger, they are the winners while the farmer is taking the entire brunt of the decision,” he says.
It was Yoder, with the help of the Indiana Farm Bureau, who forwarded the language for HB 1300 to Rep. Friend.
Indiana farmers are now put in the uncomfortable position of fighting labels that give consumers a choice but that hurt their bottom line.
The European Union had expressed a concern over the hormone's potential for impacting small and regional farms when it issued its 1993 moratorium on rbGH. Canada prohibited rbGH in 1999, largely because of concerns about animal and human welfare.
Michael Hansen, senior scientist with Consumers Union tells IB News, “Obviously this bill should not go through because the FDA and the Federal Trade Commission have said labels are not misleading and consumers have a right to know how their dairy is produced and dairy processors have a right to tell truthful information.”
As they did in Pennsylvania, consumers and dairies that don’t use rBST have an option to file a commercial free speech lawsuit.
Critics say that, along with thousands of emails, letters and phone calls, turned the tide in Pennsylvania. Hansen says, expect a citizen outcry in Indiana and perhaps next in South Carolina and Ohio.
Critics point to the group, American Farmers for the Advancement and Conservation of Technology (AFACT), as working behind the scenes on behalf of the only company that makes Posilac, Monsanto to stop labeling and slow the dwindling sales of the drug.
AFACT works on dairy issues through its spin-off group, Voices for Choices.
On its web site, Voices for Choices calls itself a campaign, “aimed at creating industry support for producers’ opportunities to use safe and approved technologies and safeguarding the image of all milk as a natural and wholesome product.”
“If you have the market working, more are going rBST free. The only way you can stop that is if you stop labeling. It’s an anti-free market campaign,” says Hansen. #