No big deal over decline of cattle hormone

Use of the genetically engineered growth hormone rbST to increase milk production in cows is on a steep decline among California dairymen. Big deal.

A survey taken 10 to 12 years ago revealed that the material was being used by about 25 percent of the state's dairymen, but only on portions of their herds. Also it revealed that a large percentage of dairymen determined at the outset of its availability never to use it, and several were doing so only on a trial basis.

Apparently that 25 percent usage was just about the peak of the material's popularity. For the past year or so, more milk is the last thing dairymen have needed as prices for dairy products dropped sharply. At the same time, cattle feed prices increased, and rbST's tendency to increase cow appetites became a stimulus that dairymen could do without.

From the time the growth hormone first began to be used in 1994, food purists and paranoid consumer advocates railed against it. They spread the word through their "scare journals" that horrendous effects and defects to the human species were liable to occur for those using milk from cows that had ingested the material.

A Ph.D candidate and a UC Cooperative Extension specialist, both in the department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at UC Davis, did both the original survey in about 1999 and a recent one covering 1,400 dairy producers in California. Both chart the use and disuse of the drug.

In a chart accompanying the report, the authors list 10 reasons given by dairy operators for discontinuing the use of rbST. The highest recording, about 26 percent of the respondents, named public opinion as their reason for abandoning the chemical.

Henry An is the Ph.D candidate, and Leslie Butler is the Cooperative Extension specialist. They reported on the compound's acceptance/ rejection in the May/June issue of Update, published by the Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics at the university.

In what must be typical language for agricultural resource economists, the authors of the report emphasize the "disadoption" of rbST by the dairy industry. I don't know if that's a real word, but it has a more scientific ring to it than saying the dairymen have flushed it into the dairy lagoon.

After the two researchers conducted the original survey when the growth hormone's use was just about at its peak, they concluded that only about 10 percent of the state's total dairy herd was being treated.

"Demand pressure from retailers and processors has played a significant role in the producer's technology choice decision, "the researchers write. Also they conclude that many producers believe the future of dairy production in California will not include rbST. It may be gone, never to return.

What the happy cows, so prominent in those milk industry commercials, think about the whole issue was not covered in the researchers' report. But we can assume that in their brushed and groomed best the dairy animals deny that their happiness is in any way the result of the growth hormone — or any other foreign substance.

Don't be surprised if in their next set of commercials they issue a denial, and perhaps voice for themselves a disclaimer in their own words regarding their disadoption of recombinant bovine somatotropin. From them we've come to expect much more than a simple "moo."

Don Curlee is an agricultural writer based in Clovis. His column appears biweekly. E-mail him at agwriter1@sbc global.net.