Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 27, 1994 TAG: 9404280001
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By JERRY JONES
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Many Virginians - from dairy farmers to milk drinkers - have heard questions either about the safety of or the need for this product. Virginia Cooperative Extension has specialists who, for many years, have followed the scientific results of the use of this product.
Tech's extension service always has favored responsible progress, but recognizes that not all change is progress. If the environmental or health aspects of a change pose threats or danger to our ecosystem or our food supply, the extension service will counsel farmers to avoid such a change, and work with lawmakers and regulatory agencies to curtail such practices.
After all, the extension service was created by Congress to serve the public interest - in part, by helping the agricultural sector discover, refine and adopt methods that provide America with the world's safest, most abundant and least expensive food supply.
Our method is to work with farmers, but our purpose is to serve all Americans. Extension specialists depend upon results from scientific investigations to help them advise people how to use or interpret new products, methods or technologies.
Last year, Americans paid $263 million through government-support programs to buy excess milk and store it as non-fat dry milk powder, cheese or butter. That's about $1 per person per year to guarantee that there will always be milk for our children. This price-support program guarantees a minimum price during excess production. Otherwise, some farms would be forced out of business.
It is difficult to believe the people of Yugoslavia or Somalia would not find that dollar to have been amazingly well-spent. It is hard to believe anyone would not find that dollar to be a remarkably cheap and effective insurance policy. But some people do.
And that is why products like bST are brought to market - to bring down the cost of production, which eventually may help the consumer by holding down prices at the supermarket. Products like these also may improve efficiency for the farmer by producing more milk per cow or bushels per acre.
The economics of a product do not determine its safety. New technologies must be shown, through research, not to affect the environment, cause risks to food safety and human health, or harm animals that would receive the product. It is important to keep the issues distinct in the minds of the public and the policymakers who will make decisions on the public's behalf.
Opponents of bST have said it will drive small farms out of business. But there is no proof this will happen. Often, farms with smaller herds are operated more efficiently than large farms.
If the social cost of losing every dairy of less than 100 cows outweighs the financial benefit of slightly increased milk production by large producers, then such a situation will be addressed as policymakers watch the patterns of bST adoption, and study the local, regional and national economic effects of those patterns. No one has said, however, that this economic situation will necessarily happen.
The extension service will work, as it always has, to help farmers directly and detrimentally affected by change to become more efficient, to diversify or, in some instances, to further specialize - depending on what the local market conditions seem to suggest.
It might be useful to note that as tractors were introduced on a wide scale after World War I, the extension service worked with producers of draft horses to alter their strategies. Some farmers changed, and their families may still be in the farming business. Some refused change and persisted in raising Percherons and Clydesdales. There is a good chance those farmers went out of business, just as the blacksmiths and carriage makers who refused to learn about automobiles are now out of business.
Opponents argue that bST will cause a greater number of cows to contract mastitis, a disease of the udder or milk-producing cells. No one argues, however, against the use of milking machines. And yet, when that technology was introduced, it also allowed farms to milk a greater number of cows while contributing to more mastitis. Extension has worked with farmers and the dairy industry to better use milking machines and to lower the cases of mastitis in dairy herds.
This country has shown time and time again that progress is impossible to stop. Sadly, sometimes change is accepted as progress too quickly, and things change for the worse before they change for the better. The massive adoption of chemicals as solutions to almost every agricultural problem was accepted as progress a little too quickly after World War II.
Rachel Carson, in the book ``Silent Spring,'' pointed that out. And the extension service responded. For more than 25 years, it has been working with farmers to reduce the amount of fertilizers and pesticides used to produce crops and also to use the correct amounts at the right times.
There have been exhaustive and rigorous tests of bST and the milk from bST-treated cows. None has shown that bST poses any threat to humans. In fact, even with the best science available, there is no way to distinguish milk from bST-treated cows from that of non-treated cows. Cows normally produce bST in their own milk but it is not used by humans because they can't absorb it into their bloodstream. The bST levels in milk from treated cows is very similar to bST levels in milk of untreated cows.
That still leaves open the question of the welfare of the cows themselves. That boils down to simple economics. If bST causes more mastitis in cows, or does anything else to reduce the overall life span or health of the cow, its use would put a farmer at an economic disadvantage and it wouldn't be used for long.
In addition, the medications used to treat infected cows are detectable in milk, and are not tolerated in the nation's milk supply. Every truckload of milk from every dairy farm is tested before the truck is unloaded at the milk plant. Infected cows are a significant expense to dairy farmers and anything that increases infections among a farmer's herd will be abandoned quickly.
Universities have been studying the effects of bST on overall herd health and on life-span of individual cows for 40 years and will continue to do so. The extension service will continue to monitor the results from these tests and will present findings to the dairy industry, farmers, milk companies, regulatory agencies and consumers. If bST is shown to be harmful to anyone, or to any animal involved in the production and consumption of the nation's milk supply, it will disappear from the marketplace through economic forces.
And that is the answer to the question of where the extension service stands in regard to bST. We stand where we have always stood, in favor of progress that continues to make the American food supply the safest, most diverse and abundant, and most affordable in the world.
If bST is as safe for cows as it is for humans, it could provide a step in that direction. If it is not, its use will quickly be discontinued.
Jerry Jones is assistant director of agriculture and natural resources in Cooperative Extension at Virginia Tech.
by CNB