How was it that Pennsylvania came to ban references to rBST on milk labels?
First, here's how the story goes, according to Pennsylvania Secretary of Agriculture Dennis Wolff.
Wolff says it was a public outcry that made him do it:
“Consumers are concerned or confused about product labeling,” said Wolff. “It’s a subject the department continues to receive many calls about.”
As a public servant, Wolff then convened a blue ribbon panel to conduct a thorough study of the problem and then followed their clear directive to issue the milk labeling ban.
"The Department of Agriculture convened a Food Labeling Advisory Committee made up of dietitians, consumer advocates and food industry representatives earlier this month to discuss potentially misleading labels. The committee urged Wolff to explore the department’s authority in labeling oversight."
The rest, as they say, is history. Actually, it's his story.
Here's where his story does not jibe with history.
First, to be accurage, make that, "consumer" advocates or consumer "advocate". For there was only one person who could credibly be called a consumer advocate on the FLAC - that panel of flacs.
As it turned out, after public demand forced revealing the make-up of that panel. And he forgot to include industry lobbyists posing as grassroots consumer advocates. link
He also forgot to mention that a huge percentage were his underlings in the Ag Department.
There's a lot he forgot to add about that committee.
So there was no panel composed as Wolff claimed. It was all a Wolff pack, with one exception. And word on the street is that the flock of FLACs looked at labels but made no decisions.
One wonders what else Wolff had to hide and where else his story does not jibe with history.
Let's take a look at the implicit claim of neutrality on this issue, the claim that he was motivated to form the FLAC by a public outcry.
So far no evidence of that public outcry has been shown.
But as it turns out, there were people making strong demands to ban milk labeling that referred to rBST. Yes, advocates of banning that labeling were abroad in the land at least from a year earlier.
Take this news story: Frustrations Vented Over Questionable Milk Marketing Practices - Thursday October 26, 2006.
This was one year before the FLAC and Pennsylvania labeling censorship.
Who was complaining? A member of the public? A consumer? Well, I suppose in the broad sense of the word that was true.
Opinions without fact. Decision points without understanding. “We can scare consumers in a 30-second sound-bite, but we can’t educate them in 30 seconds,” said Dr. Terry Etherton, department head and distinguished professor of animal nutrition at Penn State University’s Department of Dairy and Animal Sciences. “Processors and cooperatives need to stand in the light of public understanding with some accountability. The “rBST-free” labeling (and the push to get producers to sign papers) is nothing but smoke and mirrors.”
Etherton spoke to a group of more than 100 dairy farmers from Lebanon, Berks, and northern Lancaster counties who came out to the fire hall here on Wednesday (Oct. 25) for a grassroots meeting. The meeting was aimed at preserving their right to choose safe, approved technologies in managing their dairy farms, and was organized by dairymen Dan Brandt and Tom Krall of Lebanon County and Nelson Martin of Berks County.
So was this a situation in which Wolff heard the outcry?
As a matter of fact, and according to the reporter he was there and all ears. And voice too.
Pennsylvania Secretary of Agriculture Dennis C Wolff came to “listen,” but also offered important comments on the issue. Area veterinarian Dr. Brian Reed also gave his perspective. In addition to dairy farmers, there were a half-dozen veterinarians in the audience, a representative of Land-O-Lakes, a representative of Clover Farms Dairy, and representatives of the Pennsylvania Center for Dairy Excellence. Approximately 700 invitations were sent out and Martin, Krall and Brandt report receiving many phone calls from fellow dairy producers who wanted to be there.
Yes, Wolff was there and not only all ears. He was there to voice his opinons.
“Consumers are getting confused with the extra labels,” said Pennsylvania Ag Secretary Dennis Wolff. “They deserve a choice, and so do producers. But from the standpoint of safety, all milk is healthy milk. Our milk is a safe product. The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture is not in a position to say use rBST or not. The key word is: choice. I used rBST from day one of its approval to the last day that I milked cows. It was an important management tool on my dairy farm. What we oppose is the negative advertising or the selling of fear. If producers are asked to give up a production efficiency, and if that efficiency nets them $3000 or $10,000 a year for their dairy farm… That’s a lot of money. That’s money for insurance premiums or groceries. I would hate to see a safe and approved management tool taken away.”
Wolff also referred to the recent N.Y. Times article: “Which cows do you trust?” The article talked about the “middle label” in what is becoming a three-tiered milk marketing system at the retail level. The article quoted milk priced at a Safeway store near Seattle, Washington: $1.69 per half gallon of milk, $3.69 per half-gallon of Horizon Organic milk, and “priced neatly in-between at $2.79 per half-gallon was the Darigold milk labeled as “coming from cows not treated with the growth hormone rBST*. The asterisk referred to tiny letters near the bottom of the carton indicating that the FDA says there is no difference between the milk from treated and untreated cows.”
“Do the math,” said the secretary. “Those are half-gallon prices so the difference is $2.20 per gallon (between milk and rBST-free milk). There are 11 gallons in a hundredweight of milk, so that’s $24/cwt premium (at the retail level). If guys are getting $13 for their milk – where is the rest of the $37?”
So, as it turns out, there were "consumers" demanding a milk labeling ban.
But it wasn't the people we think of as consumers - that is, members of the public, regular folks, the buyers of milk.
No, in this case, it was consumers of Monsanto's Posilac. Take this report from Holstein World Online.
Meeting date - Wednesday, October 25, 2006 - Holstein World Online - The Dairy Magazine for Purebred Breeders Worldwide.
Concerned about recent rBST-free milk marketing moves by processors and cooperatives, Pennsylvania dairy farmers Dan Brandt, Tom Krall and Nelson Martin organized a grassroots meeting and call-to-action on Wednesday, October 25, 2006. More than 100 Pennsylvania dairy farmers from Lebanon, Berks, and northern Lancaster counties attended the meeting at the Schaefferstown fire hall, and many more called in to request information/response packets.
The idea for the meeting developed after producers began receiving letters about cooperatives going rBST-free at the processors’ request. Meeting organizers want to raise awareness of what is at stake and provide an opportunity to examine the short and long-term consequences. Packets were distributed including materials for sending letters to retailers, processors, cooperative leadership and the media. The organizing dairy farmers set forth the purpose of exploring several key issues:
1) the cost/return for giving up a production tool for less than its added efficiency;
2) the impact of misleading milk labels and advertisements creating confusion for consumers and eroding consumer confidence in milk;
3) at what level does consumer demand really exist for this product or is it a marketing campaign for processor and retailer margin – beyond the farm gate?
4) the consequences of differentiating this product in the marketplace through “perception” when there is no “real” difference in the product;
5) if rBST is the tool on the chopping block today, what will it be tomorrow?
6) what is the value of technology in agriculture and how will this issue affect future research and innovation?
. . .
Call to Action:1) Promote unity among dairy producers to maintain strength and freedom.
2) Urge producers to contact their cooperative leadership to voice concerns and remind them of their responsibilities to protect the interests of dairymen.
3) Urge action to stop labels and marketing campaigns from creating negative impressions about the safety and quality of milk.
4) Encourage producers not to sign documents that lock-in a specified time frame.
5) Require processors to link retail premiums back to farmers as compensation for signed agreements not to use rBST.
But communication between Wolff and the pro-rBST dairy industry was not a one-way street.
There are a number of instances in the year before Wolff decided to censor milk labels that he was out hustling support among dairy farmers and through astroturf organizations.
Take this as an example.
Wolff video-recorded a message for the Holstein Convention. It has no date, but the Holstein Convention is held about February each year, was a strong anti-labeling one. Thus, even though no date is given for this recording, it must have been no later than February 2007, since this video was up in 2007.
Note his reference to Voices for Choices at the end. According to Political Friendster:
Since Monsanto is the only choice for producers to hype the yields this is the beneficiary for the news supporting "producers rights" no mention of consumer right to know what they're swallowing though.
That Political Friendster site includes other astroturf organizations, including rBSTfacts.org, DairyBusiness Communications, American Farmers for the Advancement and Conservation of Technology - AFACT, Stop Labeling Lies, Milk is Milk, and the Center for Consumer Freedom - all tied to Monsanto and its "experts list".
Here is a transcript of Wolff's message (link opens video):
Hello, my name is Dennis Wolff, and I'm Secretary of Agriculture for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and also owner of Pennco farms.
Today I wanted to talk to you about a new trend I find alarming. It's called "extra labeling" or some call it "fear marketing."
Non-artificial hormone, antibiotic free, and pesticide free are all labels we see on milk cartons today. And they confuse the consumers. It seems to create a good milk, bad milk scenario. And it puts the image of milk at risk.
Typical labels may include "no artifical growth hormone" in large print and a small disclaimer in the back saying there is no significance in the milk whether it is from cows treated or not treated with rBST.
Many cases will force producers to sign a statements saying they will not use rBST on their herd. They will at the same time charge a premium for this extra labeled product that may include 50 cents per gallon. That's $6 per hundredweight. In many cases, none of that $6 finds its way back to the farmer's milk check.
Advances in improved and new technology are very important for agriculture., very important for the dairy farmers, and very important for producing healthy food produces, and very important to the environment.
What will be next? Will it be
, penicillin, ivermec, practices like artificial insemination or embryo transfer? We don't know, but we're very concerned.
We applaud Voices for Choices and suggest that you get involved in this timely and important issue. Our dairy farmers need new technology. They need all the opportunities that they have available to them to run profitable operations today.
They are critical. They are important and they are the reason the next generation will come back to the farm - profitability.
So there is the open minded Ag Secretary on a fact-finding mission among milk producers, finding the facts he wanted to find. And he responded:
Recently, several dairy processors began labeling and marketing milk as produced on farms not using synthetic hormones, attempting to gain more of the market share of milk sales. These marketing techniques are guiding consumers to purchase this milk, and allowing processors and retailers to charge more per gallon than for unlabeled milk. If consumers have preferences about the way food is produced such as “grass-fed,” “organic,” or “natural,” that’s their choice. However, in this situation, consumers are not basing their decisions on sound science but rather on manipulative marketing.
Actually, as a news story about this same time explained, consumer demand was for labeling, not against labeling.
Consumer Demand for rBGH-Free Milk Growing, Dairies Responding, and Monsanto is Upset - Got Milk Without Hormones? It's Headed Toward St. Louis Shelves By Rachel Melcer St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Nov 3, 2006
Monsanto's stake
Monsanto is the sole producer of recombinant bovine somatotropin, or rBST, which it began selling under the Posilac name in 1994. The company does not disclose revenue from the product, but it is part of the $7.3 billion biotech crop giant's animal agriculture unit, which reported $1.1 billion in fiscal 2006 sales. Posilac sales were constrained from 2003 until this year by a quality-control problem at a European supplier ? a problem that prompted Monsanto to invest in its own plant in Augusta, Ga., that opened in March.
Some financial analysts estimate Posilac is worth about $250 million a year to Monsanto.
The move toward Posilac-free milk is a concern for Monsanto, said Kevin Holloway, president of the company's dairy business.
. . .
So, Monsanto is appealing to producers, dairies and key retailers, Holloway said. The company recently sent to producers a 12-page brochure and unveiled a website, www.make10.net, both aimed at showing them how giving up the use of Posilac can cut production and profits.
Monsanto's campaign continued into early 2007:
April 15, 2007, Chicago Tribune - Stephen J. Hedges, Monsanto Wants Government to Ban Labels That Disavow Use of Synthetic Hormones - Corporation claims right to suppress information that may hurt profits
And Monsanto's campaign continues now.
And that is our story, though not his story.
Our story is that Dennis Wolff can be pro-Monsanto, pro-rBST if he wants to, and so can all of his allies. But that's NOT what they are doing.
What they are dong is subverting democracy by lying and hiding the truth. In the case of a public official, this is a gross abuse of the public trust.
So the question is: If they truly believe in what they are doing, then why are they afraid of telling the public forthrightly what they believe?
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