How would you feel about an everyday product’s shooting up in price--but without any improvement in quality?
It’s about to happen to milk. Call it the Great Milk Bilk of 2007.
Farmers certainly know that commodity prices can vary from season to season, based on excess supply or scarcity and often for reasons that are totally beyond our control. After all, nobody can manipulate the weather.
That’s what makes the Milk Bilk so infuriating: It’s happening for reasons that are entirely within our control, and its bad effect is utterly predictable.
Or maybe I should say, “udderly” predictable.
The root of the problem is misinformation--and specifically the false notion that the milk from cows that have benefited from a synthetic growth hormone is less safe than the milk from cows that haven’t.
The truth is that there’s not a drop of difference.
The scientific name for the hormone in question is bovine somatotropin, or BST. It occurs naturally in cows and it helps them make milk. Years ago, researchers learned that if they increased the level of BST in a cow by adding a synthetic version --called recombinant bovine somatotrpin, or rBST--they can increase a cow’s milk production by about 10 lbs. of milk per cow per day.
This is good for dairy farmers because it reduces their costs. It’s good for consumers because it lowers their grocery-store bills. And it’s good for the environment because it means we can have more milk even as we use less land, soil, and fuel.
That’s a win-win-win situation.
It gets even better: The milk from cows with rBST is exactly the same as the milk from cows without rBST. It tastes just as good, carries identical nutrients, and contains no antibiotic residue.
So why is there a fuss? There appear to be two primary causes. The first comes from the usual loud gang of anti-technology activists who seem to protest every innovation that helps boost food production. These people never seem to be farmers themselves. Sometimes I sense that they’d prefer it if those of us who actually do work the land and produce the food they eat were still using mules and oxen rather than tractors and combines.
The other cause comes from improper labeling. A few companies have decided that if they slap “rBST-free” stickers on their milk containers, then they’ll gain a competitive advantage over milk that may have been produced with rBST. (The ‘I don’t understand it, so it’s scary’ phenomena)
Unfortunately, this allows them to exploit a lack of consumer information. While it’s technically true that some milk is “rBST-free,” trumpeting this fact communicates nothing useful to shoppers. The vast majority of Americans wouldn’t even know how to milk a cow properly, let alone distinguish between BST and rBST. It would make about as much sense to put “rBST-free” labels on bags of potato chips.
A little misinformation can be a dangerous thing. Dairy farmers are now facing enormous pressure to drop rBST (Quit using it or I won’t buy your milk!). Starbucks recently sent shock waves through the industry when it announced plans to phase out its use of milk enhanced by rBST.
This will surely increase the price of a venti caramel macchiato. That probably won’t worry people who are willing to spend $4 on a cup of coffee. (Jerry Seinfeld once joked that Starbucks should rename itself Fourbucks.)
Yet costlier milk will have a negative spillover effect on people of lesser means. The National Organization for African Americans in Housing, for instance, has expressed its dismay at the bogus controversy over rBST.
“We worry that low-income consumers--fearing ‘hormones in milk’ but unable to afford the more expensive ‘rBST free’ products--will stop drinking milk altogether and opt for less-healthy alternatives,” wrote Kevin Marchman, a member of the NOAAH board.
And so the most vulnerable people in our society will be the first victims of the Great Milk Bilk.
The rest of us will merely pay higher prices, a kind of tax, if you will, on the public’s scientific illiteracy.
It’s enough to make me hope that somebody will launch a campaign of public-service announcements: Got Bilked?
Dean Kleckner, an Iowa farmer, chairs Truth About Trade & Technology. www.truthabouttrade.org
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How would you feel about an everyday product’s shooting up in price--but without any improvement in quality?
