This decision is wrong for dairy farmers and consumers

Here's a letter to the editor in today's Pittsburgh Post Gazette I thought worthy of attention:

"It's hard to think of a more wrongheaded approach to food labeling or one that is worse for Pennsylvania farmers and for concerned consumers than the standards for labeling of milk recently advanced by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture ("State Clamps Down on Dairy Labeling," Nov. 14).

"They would ban milk labeled as produced by cows without the use of rBGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone) unless the bottler can prove it through laboratory analysis. Though the claim be true, it is not possible to prove via an analysis of the milk.

"Sold by Monsanto Co., rBGH greatly enhances the milk production of an animal and is the country's largest-selling dairy pharmaceutical. Cows given rBGH have higher rates of mastitis and much shorter lives. Thus, it's banned in Canada, the European Union, Australia and Japan. Consumers in the United States who are aware of this fact seek sources of milk that don't involve its use.

Farmers who don't use the drug are stuck in the middle. They cannot compete with the flood of milk produced by those who do. Consumers are left wondering why it's wrong to use performance-enhancing drugs in sports and wrong to drug racehorses and greyhounds, yet OK to drug Bessie.

"Today's consumers are eager to know what they are eating and drinking. And the quality of both is enhanced by the distinctions. A generation ago wine was just wine, and bread was just bread, but today we are long past that. We're in the era of varietal wines, handcrafted breads and artisanal cheeses. So what's with the archaic notion that milk is just milk? Why hamper us with a regulation that can only devalue our product?

"It's the consumer's right to know if milk is produced with hormones or not. What harm is done? Isn't it a fundamental American right to have the freedom to make truthful claims on labels?
Allow the dairy farmers of Pennsylvania to distinguish themselves and make the livings they deserve!"

Don Kretscham
Rochester, PA