Food Politics

The growth hormone-free bandwagon continues to roll on in 2007, after creating quite a splash in the past year in its coast-to-coast journey. Just in the last month, Starbucks corporate coffee outlets, along with Safeway's stores in the Pacific Northwest, have put their dairy suppliers on notice that they will only accept milk from cows not treated with recombinant bovine somatotropin, which I'll henceforth call rbST (and yes, I know all milk contains growth hormones. No, this isn't a commentary about whether rbST is bad for cows or people).

While the rbST-free trend has percolated along in some markets for years, it really blossomed in 2006, affecting the Northwest, the Northeast, and even Midwestern and Southern milk markets. Where it will stop – if it does – is the question many in dairy marketing are wondering. Why it began at all, or at least emerged from a relative state of dormancy into major news, is the real puzzle.

The two primary schools of thought addressing that last question seem to be, first, that there is renewed consumer concern about food safety – an issue that has always seemed to simmer where rbST is concerned, dating back to when the product was approved by the FDA in 1994, but lately has boiled over.

The second school of thought is that processors and retailers, particularly those who are sourcing rbST-free milk but not paying any more for it than milk not certified as rbST-free, are looking for new and different ways to make extra money. In most cases, products sold as rbST-free are priced above conventional milk, yet below certified organic milk.

In that respect, the stratification of milk into premium, mid-grade and regular is similar to other products (consumers are already used to purchasing gallons of gasoline in three grades). Most retailers array their consumer staples, from laundry detergent to coffee to soup, in a tier of prices designed to appeal to every socioeconomic group. Perhaps this is a sign that the marketing of milk is now becoming sufficiently nuanced to employ a similar merchandising approach.

Regardless of the factors that have forced this issue to a head right now, I think the real concern for the dairy industry down the road is two-fold: first, that servicing the market for rbST-free milk has costs that need to be accounted for; and second, that this is part of a larger trend towards skepticism of farming practices that demands reasonable responses from farmers, yes, but also marketers and consumers. Let me explain.

The decision to use Posilac, the rbST product marketed by Monsanto, is a personal choice for dairy farmers. Some use it, most don't. NMPF traditionally has supported the right of farmers to exercise that choice. In doing so, we also have to recognize that some processors, retailers, and consumers should have the right to choose milk not produced through the use of Posilac. That's the way the market should work.

But when processors and their customers seek sources of rbST-free milk, it costs at least some producers the use of a profit-making tool. The market has to recognize that fact, by offering incentives to compensate for the opportunity cost of not using rbST. There are additional expenditures with sourcing, transporting, and processing rbST-free milk supplies that also deserve compensation. The hope here is that, assuming the rbST-free trend continues, it doesn't do so literally – meaning that it should not be offered for free, at the expense of at least some farmers' economic viability. That's not how markets should function.

The other dynamic of this trend is that farmers' practices are facing a level of scrutiny today that is only going to grow in the coming years. Technology on the farm was once viewed as a positive force; it brought us the green revolution, which allowed millions worldwide to eat more and better. But today, the green revolution is ironically defined as a back to basics movement involving sustainability, small farms, and traditional practices that few can readily define, but which some people think are far superior to the productivity-enhancing tools of conventional agriculture.

The pushback against rbST is really part of a continuum of objections raised by voluble consumers about how and where food is produced, and by whom. Those voices (and they exist among farmers as well as consumers) are what led to the creation of a certified organic system, and they are now also raising objections to those same organic standards because of the commodification and vertical integration of organic food production.

Farmers and their marketing organizations need to acknowledge and address those concerns, but they also must be prepared to defend against a litany of complaints about other practices. Today, it's rbST and veal crates. Tomorrow, it could well be sexed semen, prostaglandin hormones, tail docking, grain-based rations, or free-stall barns. Like it or not, food is not just big business; it's become a political statement, and as those in Washington, DC, know, politics is a brutal business.

National Milk Producers Federation

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