Milk Does a Body Good?
-Tara Hockett
In America's endless drive to increase productivity and make more for less, not even the sacred cow is left alone. Milk, the nectar we all drank as children so that we may "Grow up big and strong," is now genetically engineered with the recombinant bovine growth hormone, somatotropin (BST). The emergent industry of biotechnology is booming, inventing new products for agriculture and thus changing the means by which we obtain our food and what exactly that food contains. The bovine growth hormone is a prime example of this new wave of technology. Is this new technology a good thing? Is it really necessary? What impact will it have on the cows and their owners? These are the questions that need to be asked and answered before we decide to open our grocer's freezer and pull out the gallon of our favorite white beverage.
Today, the United States is already in a state of mass overproduction of milk and milk products, particularly in the form of butter. "From 1980 to 1985, total US milk production increased 11.5 percent (15 billion pounds) despite a 2.3 decline in average farm price."3 The government currently buys this surplus of milk with public dollars in order to sustain the price of milk and to keep farmers in business. An increase in milk production exacerbates the existing milk surplus, driving down prices, and making it more difficult for the small or middle-sized dairy farmers to stay in business. "According to the governments own study, it will cost taxpayers over $500 million in increased milk support prices because the drug will flood the already drowning milk market, where the government supports prices."1
As for the farmer, the outcome looks grim, unless you are the owner of a large farm, or own a cow for your own personal production and not for profit. Biotechnology is changing the face of farming, and in doing so, putting a lot of farmers out of business and out of a way of life. "Not only would the BST boost the milk supply and further depress prices," John Kinsman says, "but the labor intensity of using the substance--daily injections of each cow and much closer inspection for mastiffs (infections on the udder)--would make it prohibitive for small farmers." "It would only be the larger, corporate-type farms that would have the additional help who could do it," says Kinsman, who milks 30 cows on his 150-acre farm in south central Wisconsin. "Small farmers already are stressed to death."4 Jeremy Rifkin, president of the Pure Food Campaign, estimates the bovine growth hormone will force 30% of the US dairy farmers out of business by 1997.2 A study by the National Family Farm Coalition reported that in 1990, a mere 3% increase in milk surplus resulted in a 30 percent drop in income for dairy farmers. The report predicted that with the introduction of the bovine growth hormone, the average income for farmers will drop $10,000 to $30,000 per farm.
The manufactured bovine growth hormone seems to be an offspring of the "Green Revolution", a fundamental change in agricultural technology, which rose in the 1960's and 70's. The Green Revolution came from the assumption that poverty and hunger in poor countries were the result of low agricultural productivity...that subsistence farming was not getting the job done. The primary problem with the Green Revolution is that it requires farmers to invest heavily into new technologies, such as tractors, combines, fertilizers, etc.. Large sums of money must be borrowed to pay for the technology in the hopes that the crop sales will increase and allow the farmer to repay the debt later. However, when the crop yield does not increase dramatically the farmer often loses his farm and is driven into a migrant pool of cheap labor for corporate-farming, or is forced to seek work in landless cities.
"Excluding military spending on fabulously expensive, dysfunctional weapons systems, there is no more dramatic case of people having their needs appropriated for the sake of profit at any cost. Like high-input agriculture, genetic engineering is often justified as a humane technology, one that feeds more people with better food. Nothing could be further from the truth. With very few exceptions, the whole point of genetic engineering is to increase the sales of chemicals and bioengineered products to dependent farmers, and to increase the dependence of farmers on their new handlers, the seed companies and the oil, chemical, and pharmaceutical companies that own them."6
Although it is true that BST will increase the milk production of cows, it also has some serious side effects on the health and well being of the animal. BST creates health problems that will require more work of the farmers to keep their animals in good health and able to produce consumable milk. In Monsanto's brochure to veterinarians, it acknowledges 21 different side effects of its chemical produced hormone, known as Posilac. The major side effect is an increase in mastitis, a breast infection that leads to inconsumable and visibly abnormal milk. In order to treat mastitis, farmers have to purchase antibiotics, which accelerate the spread of antibiotic resistance among bacteria in humans. Thus by allowing our cows to produce more milk, we are leaving ourselves vulnerable to disease. Milk from BST-treated cows may also contain insulin growth factor, IGF-1, which has been implicated in human breast and gastrointestinal cancers. The use of this hormone will force farmers to take on extra debt for more expensive feeds needed for the special nutritional requirements of BST-treated cows, high-tech feed management systems, and added veterinary care that go along with its use. This does not take into account the additional hours spent on tending to the animals who incur these problems.
It is quite clear that the introduction of this biotechnology will dramatically change the dairy industry. To the farmers it is a change that many do not agree with, or see a need for. During the 1940's, a good sized Vermont dairy farm had about thirty cows. This brought in enough money to feed and clothe a large family and send one or two children to college. Today, a large Vermont dairy farm has from 300 to 500 cows, and parents send children to college only by adding on more debt. More American farmers are trying to stay afloat by expanding their businesses. Every time they do something which requires additional expenditures, like implementing bovine growth hormone use, they attempt to pay off the debt by adding a few more cows to the herd. They end up doing more work for more animals while having less time with each cow in their care. This is a direct reason why cows do not survive as long. Twenty years ago cows were not culled, or "beefed" until they were eighteen. Today they are culled from the herd at age six or so because of a deterioration in health. "Stanley Christiansen of East Montpelier, Vermont, was well known for many years among Vermont farmers as one who welcomed technology, and is typical of today's working brand of dairyman. Christiansen, who has been welcoming innovations since he saw a fast-hitch tractor at the 1939 World's Fair in New York, now feels he spent a lifetime cutting his own throat."10 It seems that if cows stayed off hormones and concentrated on eating grass, we all would be better off. However, the biotechnology industry rolls on, converting humanity's collective agricultural heritage from an enduring, farmer controlled lifestyle to an energy-dependent, corporate process.
How will this effect the consumers? First, there is no government regulation of the labeling of milk containing BGH, thus consumers are often unaware of what they are really consuming. To ward off opponents, Monsanto has threatened to, and has sued dairies that sought to label dairy products as being BGH-free, on the grounds that it was a restraint of trade. "I told Monsanto on their 800 number that if their product is so great, they should label it." said Tom Sayre, a farmer from Edgerton, Wisconsin.8 Companies like Ben & Jerry's and Gerber are giving their producers extra incentives not to use the hormone as well as vowing not to purchase any products containing the hormone. Consumers do have the choice to buy organic; however, it does cost more and is less readily available. Fueled in part by the BGH controversy, organic milk sales have reached $50 to $60-million annually.9 A March 1994 Gallup survey indicated that 63% of US citizens were aware of the BGH controversy, and in the month after the February 1994 introduction of the BGH, milk consumption declined by 3.4 percent. In May of 1994, the Texas-based Associated Milk Producers dumped 11 trailers of milk, valued at more than $70,000, because of BGH and the exacerbated surplus problem.10
It is quite clear that the consumer will not benefit from this new technology either. Not only will they pay more if they want BGH-free milk, but if they do purchase milk with BGH, if they are even aware of it, there is cited data from Monsanto that indicates that BGH decreases milk quality and shortens shelf life. It seems that if companies are able to get people to purchase chemically produced milk, they can get them to consume anything. Scientists are still uncertain what effect this hormone will have on babies, who consume more milk than anyone. I believe that the general public does and will continue to have a problem with this science-tampered milk, although I am unsure what can be done about it with powerful corporations like Monsanto having so much control and government backing.
If the success of genetically engineered bovine growth hormone was purely a matter of scientific acceptance, its manufacturers would have declared victory a long time ago. Every relevant and credible scientifically oriented organization from the FDA to the National Institutes of Health, has testified to the effectiveness of BGH in spurring cows to produce more milk, however it is not that simple. BGH is a technological product surrounded by ironic contradictions. It will raise milk production at a time of huge surplus. It will jeopardize the health of cattle and require more work from the few large farms that are able to remain in the dairy industry. It will squeeze the "little man" out of farming and change a heritage on the verge of extinction. It will introduce higher rates of disease among dairy herds and increase health risks in the milk supply at a time of rising concern over the use of chemical additives in food. Ultimately everyone stands to lose with the introduction of BGH to the dairy industry, except for a remarkably small group of wealthy agri-chemical corporations.