 |
|
|
VICTORY!
Tillamook Votes to ban rBGH in its cheese - despite
pressure from Monsanto
The Tillamook County Creamery Association's membership voted 83-43 to back up the Board's previous decision to go rBGH-free, effective April 1, 2005.
After a two-hour discussion, the co-op's members decided to listen to their consumers' wishes rather than Monsanto.
In an incredible display of consumer activism and strength, over 6,500 people commented to Tillamook by phone, e-mail, fax and letter. Over 98% of the comments stressed the desire for the dairy to go rBGH-free! If ever there was a demonstration that this genetically engineered hormone has nothing to offer but increased disease rates in cows and health risks to consumers, this was it.
--------------------
The Tillamook County Creamery Association announced Friday, February 18th it had asked all of its 147 member farmers to halt use of the recombinant bovine somatotropin hormone, or rBST (also known as rBGH, recombinant bovine growth hormone), despite increasing pressure from Monsanto to overturn that decision.
"After a nearly two-year process of developing and implementing a policy requiring our dairy suppliers to forgo the use of artificial bovine growth hormone, Tillamook County Creamery Association is facing an aggressive intrusion by Monsanto into the association's decision-making process," the association said in a prepared release.
The genetically engineered rBST, or rBGH, hormone, sold under the brand name Posilac, is marketed to dairy farmers as a way to boost milk production in dairy cows. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the hormone in 1993, allowing one of the first major biotechnology-related products to enter the nation's food supply. About 10 to 15 percent of dairy farmers nationally use rBGH, according to recent estimates.
As quoted in an Associated Press article, Friday, February 18th, Christie Lincoln, spokeswoman for Tillamook said the decision to ban the hormone was driven by consumers.
"Consumers of Tillamook dairy products expect Tillamook to do the right thing," she said. "They're asking us to remove the recombinant bovine hormone from our product, and we're just responding to that."
In its press release, the creamery association said "Monsanto has been especially vigorous in trying to dissuade" the dairy cooperative from banning the hormone, and accused the company of trying "to drive a wedge" between the association and its members.
"In November, Consuelo Madere, president of Monsanto Dairy Business, took the extraordinary step of sending a letter directly to (Tillamook) members questioning the policy and seeking its reversal," the association said.
"The letter's intrusion into the co-op's internal affairs pales in comparison to Monsanto's unprecedented effort in the past two weeks to divide Tillamook's dairy farmers over the issue," the association said.
The dairy cooperative said that Monsanto sent an attorney from the Washington, D.C., law firm of King & Spalding to Oregon to meet with more than a dozen co-op members. The attorney, James Dabney Miller, has represented Monsanto on rBST issues, including its FDA approval, the association said.
Miller helped some association members prepare an amendment to the co-op's bylaws that would prevent the ban. The amendment also requested a special meeting that is expected to be scheduled with the next two weeks, the association said.
Tillamook is the nation's number 2 maker of chunk cheese.
|
|
|
|
|
