Terry Etherton’s Blog on Hormones, Biotechnology, and Food Safety

By SHERRY BUNTING
Special for Farmshine

LANCASTER, Pa. – “They’ve heard the lies, now it’s time they hear from the farmers,” said Pennsylvania dairyman Tom Krall during the second day of the Dairy Summit here on February 7. Krall-View Farm, Lebanon County, is home to a 100-cow milking herd.

Krall, along with DairyBusiness publisher Joel Hastings presented information about the new producer organization: American Farmers for the Advancement and Conservation of Technology (AFACT). Read the rest of this entry »

Terry D. Etherton

Protect consumer choice:In the marketplace it is important that consumers have the right to buy milk produced by the most efficient, safe and sanitary methods of dairy farm management practices and production technologies that are available,and priced to reflect these efficiencies. Read the rest of this entry »

The following podcast features Orion Samuelson of WGN Radio discussing the use of recombinant bovine somatotropn (rbST).

Orion Samuelson is heard on WGN Radio, where he has served as Agribusiness Director since 1960. He and his associate, Max Armstrong, present 15 agricultural/business reports daily on WGN. They also host the hour-long Morning Show and Noon Show, both heard on Saturdays on WGN. Orion is also heard daily on more than 260 radio stations with his syndicated National Farm Report and on 110 stations with his syndicated Samuelson Sez. Orion and Max are seen weekly on rural channel RFD-TV, carried on Dish-TV and DirecTV on This Week in Agribusiness.

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The following podcast is of an interview with Dr. Terry Etherton on WHYY Radio in Philadelphia. This interview took place on January 15, 2008.

Summary from WHYY: The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture recently ruled that dairies that do not inject their cattle with synthetic growth hormone can no longer label their milk as hormone-free. The decision, which has been put on hold until the beginning of February, raises serious questions for consumers, dairy farmers, and retailers. We talk to TERRY ETHERTON of Penn State University.

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By TERRY D. ETHERTON, Ph.D.
My editorial reply to the Centre Daily Times, State College, PA
(Published in the January 21, 2008 issue of the Centre Daily Times)

Your editorial (Truth is spilled over milk, published on January 3, 2008) overlooked a lot of truths and passed on a few half truths as well.

The biggest overlooked truth is that the controversy over milk labeling has more to do with company profits than with consumer demand. The truth is that milk companies have forced farmers to stop using recombinant bovine somatotropin (rbST) so that the companies can imply through advertising that their milk is better than some other company’s milk. This disingenuous advertising — “hormone free,” “no artificial hormones,” etc. – is fully aimed at customers who cannot be expected to know all the facts about rbST. There is a bothersome fact that undermines this advertising strategy: All milk contains hormones —the same hormones in the same amounts, irrespective of whether the cow has been supplemented with rbST. This includes organic milk and milk from cows not supplemented with rbST. Even vitamin D, which is used to fortify milk, is a hormone. Read the rest of this entry »

Terry D. Etherton

The Case Study

The following editorial on milk labeling, Truth is spilled over milk, was published in the January 3, 2008 issue of the Centre Daily Times (State College, Pennsylvania).

As an educator for almost 30 years, and having given countless quizzes and exams, I thought it would be informative for the readers of my blog for me to GRADE this editorial. Read the rest of this entry »

Editorial from Hoard’s Dairyman
January 10, 2008 Issue

Kudos to Pennsylvania Secretary of Agriculture Dennis Wolff for his department’s announcement that it will not allow dairy retailers to market milk with so-called “absence labels” in the state. Wolff, a dairy farmer himself, said that his department reviewed 140 labels and found 16 of them false or misleading. This announcement covered labels promising milk to be free of certain things such as artificial hormones, antibiotics, or pesticides. Read the rest of this entry »

SHERRY BUNTING
Published in Farmshine (December 21, 2007 issue)

The purpose of this column is to discuss news affecting dairy marketing and prices. Before digging in, let’s reflect on the season and the yearend state of the dairy business…

New and value-added products in the dairy case are receiving good demand from consumers. Record exports brought record prices to overseas markets. And dairy farmers received record prices for their milk. 2007 has been a good year: particularly welcome after the abysmal losses of 2006.

But there’s something else 2007 will be known for: unease and potential division based on differences in production practices.

The milk labeling issue – and the uncertainty and controversy it brings to technologies like rbST – are overshadowing what would otherwise be a banner year. Read the rest of this entry »

Lyle Ruprecht
20009 Mishey Road
Butler, Ohio 44822

I am writing this letter as a concerned member of the dairy industry regarding misinformation surrounding the topic of recombinant bovine somatotropin (rBST). As a member of the Ohio Department of Agriculture’s Dairy Label Review Committee, I have done a large amount of research on the topic of rBST and the FDA’s guidance on labeling relating to the use of rBST. Read the rest of this entry »

By Dairy Herd staff, www.dairyherd.com

Efforts to label certain milk as “rBST free” are not consumer inspired, but rather a move by marketers to put different types of milk in the store in order to gain premium pricing in some cases.

That, according to Terry Etherton, head of the dairy science department at Penn State University, helps explain why we are increasingly seeing three types of milk in the grocery store:

* Conventional
* r-bST-free
* Organic

Read the full text of this article (requires registering with dairyherd.com)…